


Simple Pleasures

by V4Vulnerability



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Awkward Boners, Awkward Romance, Car Accidents, Coffee Shops, Dean Winchester - Freeform, Death, Destiel - Freeform, F/F, F/M, Healing, Human Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Masturbation, Original Character(s), Pagan Gods, Pie, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Regret, Shower Sex, Slow Build, Tea, Team Free Will, Trauma, Trust, Violence, castiel - Freeform, the cake is a lie but what about pie?
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-12-04
Packaged: 2017-12-27 17:48:38
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 35,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/981835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V4Vulnerability/pseuds/V4Vulnerability
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean walked out the café and slipped into the Impala much more awake than when he entered. His arousal came in part from perturbation about this strange shop and the blue-eyed barista within, but also from how keenly aware he was of how tight his jeans were at the hips.</p>
<p>One of Dean's simple rules of life: do not acknowledge male inspired boners.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I originally started publishing this on FF.net, but my friend DreamingStarkly's convinced me to make the move over to Archive. I'll update every few days until we're caught up with where I am on FF.
> 
> Other Trigger Warnings:  
> Queerphobia (on the part of Dean - no worries, he'll get over it relatively quickly)  
> Car Accidents  
> Possibly Disturbing Philosophical Questions (but that's WAAAAAAAY later on)

Dean yawned while pounding his head on the Levi's steering wheel, grumbling over life's simple rules and willing the stoplight to turn green already. On which rule was he meditating? Rule number one of highways: don't stop in the middle of the fucking road. Why? Because your dumb ass will get hit and then Dean will have to get out of bed at two in the morning to tow what's left back to town. In this case that was a very bloody Mini Coupe.

Once the light changed Dean dragged the royally blendered car to the yard, dropping it next to two-thirds of a 1998 Ford Taurus. He left a note for Bobby about the new addition before putting Levi back in her spot near the back corner. He looked at his watch: 5:30 am. He had to be at the shop on Locust Street in thirty minutes to open up. He yawned again.

Coffee time.

Dean sniffed hard and rubbed his baggy eyes as he walked over to the Impala, shivering despite the three layers of clothing. "Hey baby," he smiled, rubbing the hood. "Let's warm me up."

Levi, or the Leviathon, really had nothing on Dean's 1967 Impala. The rusty tow truck was sturdy but it was old as cave-man crap and looked like it ate bicyclists for sport. The Impala though… the long, sleek, black mistress would at least have the decency to ask your name and whisper sexy little nothings in your ear before taking a bite. Both could kill you, but if you went by the Impala you'd enjoy it. Plus, heating.

Dean pulled himself inside, cranked up the heating and radio, and glided out of the junk yard, trying to remember if any place in Lawrence sold coffee this early in the morning. This would be one of those moments when he'd text Sammy to see what insider scoop his brother had on the secret somethings of this frozen college town, but… yeah, Sammy wouldn't answer nowadays, not with law school and being in Kansas City and dropping off the face of the fucking planet.

"Just leave me behind, Sammy, you do that…," Dean muttered. "Bitch."

It probably wasn't helping that Dean was driving by the University campus right then, the one he'd driven his brother to every morning since they couldn't afford campus housing, the one that Dean'd helped pay for by dropping out and working overtime, the one they'd gotten drunk in and just talked for hours after Sammy messed things up with some chick, or when Dad died. God, that night… and Sam just up and—

"Coffee," Dean said, shaking himself. "Coffee coffee coffee gotta get me some coffee."

He drove north on Massachusetts through South Park, a place that never ceased to make Dean giggle, and onto the main strip. The place was deserted, but that wasn't surprising. Massachusetts Street catered to the high-brow college kids and their suburbanite families; for something that'd be open when the proletariat was getting to work, Dean'd have to look elsewhere. Though proletariat wasn't the word Dean used in his head. He chose 'the Man's butt-boy.'

Two streets over Dean found a string of storefronts with a light layer of grime. One had the lights on and a big, black hanging sign with a white stencil of a coffee cup with a lightning bolt coming out the top. He checked the front windows and indeed there stood a tall counter with a black chalkboard with white words saying 'espresso' and 'caffeine bomb'. He bundled up, yawned wide, and walked inside the unknown java joint.

Loud banter and the laughs of old friends startled Dean upon opening the door. The store seemed… uncannily populated this early in the morning… by clumps of people he wouldn't normally see in Lawrence. Sure, this was a college town, so it was pretty diverse, but in this café there were roughly no other white people. Not one. Hm. Dean recalled the words of a girl he once dated who told him that, as a white male, he could never know what her life was like as a black woman.

I think I'm getting an idea, Dean thought to himself, wary of the dropping conversations around him as people chose instead to stare at him, as if befuddled about why he was there. Dean smiled nervously and contemplated turning right around and jumping into the icy Kansas River to wake up until he heard:

"Hello there! You can get in line over here!"

Dean eyed his onlookers warily. One by one they were shrugging and going back to their business of enjoying each other's presence with gusto. Dean's nervous smile waned into a grimace as he struggled over to the line in front of the counter. Once through the throngs of people Dean saw there wasn't a line, just a brown haired young man with high cheekbones, an airy smile, and an auburn apron. The nameplate read, "Castiel."

"How are you this morning?" Castiel said with such a tone of sincerity that Dean asked,

"Have we met before?"

Castiel quirked his head to the side like a curious bird. "Possible," he said, taking in a deep breath, closing his eyes a moment, then opening them again. "But unlikely."

"Uh, okay. Just gimme something with a lotta wake up juice, like that caffeine bomb thing."

Castiel wrote the order down and moved towards the numerous copper press machines, but his hand caught the corner of the counter. "You know…," he said, biting his bottom lip with a grin and holding his finger up in aha position. Then he was gone, diving off to the right behind the tall counter.

Dean's eyebrows rose for a moment before drooping back down. He as too tired to deal with this much what-the-fuck.

Castiel popped around the corner of the counter again, holding a Dixie cup and an expectant smile up to his eyes. "Try this."

"Dude, thanks, but I just need some coffee," Dean sniffed.

"I disagree," Castiel said. "You need something to pick you up. This will do that."

Dean stared for a moment before taking the small cup. He lifted it to his nose and breathed in… a strange mix of aromas that he was sure he knew from somewhere. "What is it?"

"It's a milk steamed tea, but I can't say which one. Kind of a secret recipe," Castiel smiled.

"Ah, sorry man, I don't drink that stuff," Dean said, putting down the cup of alluring steamed whoa.

"I presume," Castiel said, pulling the small cup back towards his side of the counter while turning around towards a tall, copper percolator. "You refuse because tea isn't what a man should drink?"

"If you're saying it's a sissy drink, then yeah," Dean replied.

Castiel's lips pressed together as he nodded slightly. "I'd think that someone who is strong wouldn't care what anyone says about something they try or that they like; they'd simply try it or do it. And it's not like strength is a definitively male characteristic, nor one defined by abrasiveness."

"I didn't mean to insult you man, just… coffee," Dean said, pinching the bridge of his nose.

"You didn't mean to insult me but you did mean to insult," Castiel replied, setting a tall cup of coffee down on the counter. He broke open a small package of white powder and stirred its contents into the coffee, adding in a pressed squeeze of an unseen spice. "And someone who is insulting is someone who needs a pick me up, otherwise they wouldn't bother trying to hurt anything else to make themselves feel better."

Not. Enough. Sleep. "Okay, fine. Is that the caffeine bomb?"

"Yes. Your total is three-fifty."

Dean set down a five bill and picked up the bomb, taking a sip and – HOLY SHIT BITTER.

"If you don't mind my curiosity, why are you so tired?" Castiel asked, not looking up from the register.

"I'm, uh," MOUTH BURNING BRAIN TWITCHING. " I'm a mechanic. Opening up the shop on Locust."

"Winchester Auto-Repair?" Castiel smiled.

"Yeah," Dean said, trying to stomach another sip of the bomb. "There was a wreck last night, went to pick up the pieces in the witch hours."

Castiel nodded, one hand on the slow-to-print receipt and the other pushing the Dixie cup to the middle of the front counter. "Where did it happen?"

"The crash?"

"Yes."

"Uh…," God his hands were starting to jitter. "Down near Ottowa."

Castiel's eyebrows drew together and he stared at Dean, almost sternly. "The driver died, didn't they?"

Dean nodded but shrugged it off.

"You've seen many people die, haven't you?"

"Just part of the business," Dean replied. Castiel handed him his receipt and change, still staring.

"But you've known death more personally too," Castiel said.

Dean's hazel green eyes locked with Castiel's blues, clear and steady, knowing. Dean's hands were shaking, but he wasn't sure it was just the bomb anymore.

"It shows in your eyes, and you wear it on your shoulders," Castiel explained. His stern stare broke when he looked down at nothing with pressed lips for a moment, then grabbed a small card from behind the counter and scribbled something on the back. "Here, next drink's on me, out of respect and camaraderie, not pity," he said, passing the card over.

Dean stared for a moment. This was a gift, or something strange and twisted meant to get his guard down so he could get shanked later on. Dean knew how to deal with that second option, but not the first. It'd been too long since he'd been given something… especially something out of 'respect and camaraderie.'

Eventually he remembered what to do. "Thanks," Dean said softly, looking over the card. He turned towards the door, lifting his cup to his mouth, but Castiel's arm shot out and stopped him, grabbing the cup - - or his hand? Both, really.

Something shivery shot from Dean's neck down to his tailbone.

"Don't drink that," Castiel said. "That's got enough caffeine to give a giant a heart attack. Take this instead," he handed dean the Dixie cup. "That's got all you need for today."

"This stuff again?"

"Just drink it, tough guy."

Dean pursed his lips - - no one tells me what and what not to do - - but he decided Ahh, what the hell, and in one gulp he swallowed. A faint chocolate bloom followed, slightly sweet, earthy, and creamy with a strange aftertaste of poached cherries and allspice. His tongue curled from the unmistakable sting of caffeine. And mouthgasm.

"Dude… this is the best fucking thing I've ever tasted. What is it?"

"Come in again and I'll tell you," Castiel smiled.

"Uh… sure. When… uh, when do you work?"

"Ah…," Castiel's smiled faltered. "Kind of all the time."

Dean raised an eyebrow but let the matter go. He turned to leave again, raising the caffeine bomb to his lips again out of habit. He stopped and chuckled awkwardly, pointing to the cup as if to say, "Oh, yeah, right, demon blood, destroy it, riiiiiight."

But as he tossed in a nearby wastebasket he said, "Yo, uhh, Castiel?"

"Yes?"

"Why do you guys make a drink that could kill somebody? Seems pretty stupid for a whole lotta reasons."

Castiel looked down at the counter with a toothy version of his airy grin. "Those reasons would make sense in a normal coffee shop, Mr. Winchester, but does this seem like the average coffee shop to you?"

Mr. Winchester slapped Dean in the face with impropriety of his father and memories of his family that was always sand-crumbling through his fingers, but for a moment he held Castiel's eyes, then looked around the shop at the people who were way too wired this early in the morning, even with caffeine bombs. Which he realized was a popular drink… in fact he was straining to find anyone without one. Dean had felt this place was a little weird before, but now…

"Don't call me Mr. Winchester, aright? It's Dean."

Castiel nodded. "Hope you have a better day then, Dean Winchester."

He walked out the door and slipped into the Impala much more awake than when he entered. His arousal came in part from perturbation from this strange coffee shop without a name. He looked at the card Castiel gave him. The back read, "Free drink from Cas," and the front, "Obolus Café. Lawrence, Kansas."

However, the unarticulated major cause for his arousal came from the warm tingling that moved down his neck to his pelvis, the same thing that was making his cheeks hot and Dean's skin keenly aware of how tight his jeans were at the hips.

Another simple rule of life: do not acknowledge male inspired boners.


	2. Chapter 2

Dean stared at the grease stained card to the Obolus Café, specifically at the side that guaranteed him a free drink. Plus a chance to see that airy smile again. And, well, learning what that died-and-gone-to-sex-heaven drink was, but the smile was the more interesting codicil.

Dean shouldn't want to see that smile though. This thought was the mantra Dean had worshiped for the last seven days, a variation from his usual "Please God don't make guys turn me on," which he'd been saying for years. Women had entrancing hips and lips and that should be enough, but for damnable, unknown reasons Dean found the carved lines of men just as distracting. His saving grace was that most men were about as mentally stimulating as the car wrecks in the junkyard, so he could blow off his attraction with a quick wank followed by a chaser of guilt.

But when Dean followed through with his usual modus operandi after his first encounter at the Obolus, no guilt arose to put him back in his place. Instead Dean sat in Winchester Auto-Repair's bathroom with his pants down around his ankles and his brain stuck at WANT. In seven days' time he had somewhat moved past that point; now he was stuck in the Impala's driver's seat, clenching and unclenching his jaw while staring at the Obolus's front door.

His brain replayed "…Someone who is strong wouldn't care what anyone says about something they try or that they like; they'd simply try it or do it."

"The fuck…" Dean muttered. "This is stupid, what the fuck am I doing here, just sittin' here like a…like…"

Dean dropped his forehead onto the steering wheel. He'd been sitting there for an hour. This was no longer stupid. Stupid had gone and passed and now Dean was in county of Pathetic, county seat Come On Already And Do Something.

He should just go in, get the drink, find out what that last drink was, and then drive back to the shop and never. Come. Back. EVER. Get in, get out, he said to himself, reaching for the door handle. Get in, get out, get in, get out…

Dean stepped out of the car, shook off the numb in his legs, and marched through the front door to the counter, holding out Castiel's card like a police badge. "Yo, here for the drink."

Castiel held up one finger as he finished writing something down on a pad of paper. Dean stood unmoving, holding out the greasy card, an act he increasingly realized made him look like an idiot. He checked around the front room and found only one other customer, a red-headed young woman pressed up close to her laptop with donut earphones covering the sides of her head. Well, at least he'd only look stupid to the security camera.

Castiel put down his pen and looked up, grinning.

"Good January afternoon, Dean Winchester. What drink would you like?"

Shit. "Uhh…" Dean leaned over and squinted at the back blackboard. Go in, get a drink, get out… that plan hadn't included choosing a drink. "How about that thing you made last time."

"Would you prefer that or a pleasant surprise?" Castiel said.

"Uh…" Why'd he have to say 'pleasant surprise'? Don't picture him naked don't picture him naked don't – ah fuck. "Sure, heh, let's go with the, uh, surprise."

Castiel gave a brisk nod before swiping the card out of Dean's fingers and walking off behind the counter, saying, "This card has seen a lot of love."

Focus man, FOCUS. "Yeah, I guess you could say that."

"Mm…," Castiel said as he poured something hot into an unseen cup. "I haven't heard of any other wrecks in the area recently. I suppose it has been quiet at your shop?"

"Yeah, quieter than a graveyard," Dean said, which he followed with a mental facepalm. Why was he talking with this guy? Stick. To. The. Plan.

"Interesting comparison," Castiel replied, stepping back into view but with his back turned, pumping something from a copper tank into a tall, card-stock cup. He wore no undershirt beneath his white button-down and apron, leaving Dean with a glancing view of the black wing tattoos going down both sides of Castiel's back. "A junk yard is a graveyard in it's own sense, for the vehicles left there as well as the investments people made in them, be they monetary or emotional or, well, physical."

The guy has tattoos. Fucking BADASS tattoos. Dean's pants tightened around the hips. "Cool tats," he blurted out.

Castiel flinched. "…What?"

"The tattoos on your back, they're, uh…," The plan, but sweet Jesus, TATS. "Yeah, they're pretty awesome."

Castiel put one more pump of an unseen liquid into the cup before turning around. "You can see through the back of my shirt, can't you?"

"Well it's not like you're wearing saran wrap—"

"You can see through the back of my shirt," Castiel pressed his lips together. "My apologies."

"No man it's cool, really. Where'd you get 'em?"

"Not here. They're from… another life," Castiel said. His lips eased around the edges. "Dragon pearls."

"…What?"

"The tea I gave you last time was a black, milk-steamed tea made with something called dragon pearls. Their taste is known for its earthiness and similarity to cocoa. I mixed it with the leftover liquid from brandied cherries... but it's the dragon pearls that carry the flavor's foundation."

"That sounds pretty complicated just for some leaf juice," Dean said, eyeing the cup of yellow-green liquid in front of him.

"Leaf juice…," Castiel repeated with a smile. "Tea is just like anything else; if you want it to be worthwhile, then you must mix it with other things. A painting would hardly be a painting if the only pigment you used was red, or a car engine would hardly be a good car engine if all it comprised of were those paddle things that go up and down."

"You mean the pistons in the pneumatic cylinders?" Dean asked with a popped eyebrow.

"Yes!" Castiel said, pointing at the mouth that made the word he needed. "It's the same with tea and coffee."

"Uh-huh… sounds all a bit too deep for me."

"I doubt that's too deep for you," Castiel replied. And paused. Just as Dean was realizing the possible sexual innuendo Castiel continued with, "You caught on to the allegory and provided the word I didn't know. A superficial mind couldn't do that."

Dean, once again, stood there stupidly. Technically he was just complimented for his intelligence, which followed a possible come-on that only came about because this guy with blue eyes and high cheekbones had teasing tattoos on his back.

Dean did not possess enough blood to power all his stimulated parts. He finally managed to smirk and grab the drink in front of him, taking a sip. The flavor wasn't as rich this time, but it was at least easier to place: He definitely recognized the crisp taste of watermelon and the icy tang of mint. But there was an additional spectrum of nutty flavors he wasn't sure of.

"First one was better than this one," Dean said, quick to follow with, "But still pretty awesome. What is it?"

Castiel chuckled and leaned forward on the counter with his elbows. "I can't tell you. See, it's kind of a secret recipe."

"Aw, dude, come on, you can't do that to me twice."

"I disagree. Frankly, I can do anything I want as many times as I want. As can you," he smiled. "Am I wrong?"

There was definitely a come-on in that oration somewhere. "I, uh, sure."

Smooth, dude. Smooth.

Castiel's smile faded into a grin and he stood back up, pulling another card in front of him while clicking the back of a pen. Dean struggled for something cool to say, but before he could get an idea Castiel was handing him the card. "The same deal as last time."

This had not gone as planned. Get in and get out had turned into definitely coming back to the Obolus Café as soon as possible. What was wrong with him? Dean didn't want to be one of those gay guys who pranced around in scant clothing and talked like the worst kind of Valley Girl imaginable. Gay guys were fine, and guys who were like that were fine, but Dean didn't want to be one. Conversations with Cassie started running back into his mind… and he didn't want to think about anything anymore.

Twice this place had managed to give him a boner and an unwelcome shove down memory lane. Maybe he could swing by later today and that would be the last time…

"Dean?" Castiel said. "You look to be contemplating something disastrous."

"Nah man, it's… Nah, I'll fill this one up after work tonight," Dean said, waving the card. He turned to leave.

"When do you get off work?" Castiel asked.

"Eleven thirty," Dean replied.

Castiel paled. "No."

"What?"

"Don't come back here after sunset. It's dangerous. Come tomorrow instead."

"What, you think I can't take some drunk college kids?"

Castiel eyed the back of the store for a moment before whispering, "Remember when I told you this wasn't an average café? The danger isn't average either. Come tomorrow, after the sun's risen."

Dean nodded and continued his way back to the Impala. Well now he had something to distract him from introspection or bad memories: The danger isn't average either. What did that mean?

Dean sat in the front seat for several minutes before something else came to him: Why didn't Castiel just say the shop closed early? Why did he look at the back of the shop before whispering not to come back until sun-up?

Dean eventually dragged himself back to Winchester Auto-Repair and called Bobby to let him know he was back on the clock. "Like it really matters," Bobby said. "You'd get paid anyway, boy. I'm still sayin' you need to get out more."

"Yeah yeah, whatever Bobby," Dean said, almost hanging up the shop phone. But before he put it down he asked. "Yo, Bobby, you ever hear of this Café on New Hampshire called the Obolus?"

"The Obolus?"

"Well, the Obolus Café."

"Don't reckon I have, but it's a funny name," Bobby replied. "You know what an Obolus is Dean?"

"Uh… the salient details of public school didn't stick real well," Dean said, pressing his fingers on the bridge of his nose.

"Says the almost archaeologist," Bobby replied.

"Walking a thin line there, Bobby."

"If I remember right the obolus was the currency of the ancient Greeks, mainly the people who lived on the main peninsula instead of Peloponnese. When someone died you stuck an obolus under their tongue so when they got to Hades they could pay for the ride across the river Acheron."

"Hunh," Dean said. "And who's the almost archaeologist?"

"Boy, I got my degree, and you can too if you'd just-"

"Not havin' that discussion, Bobby." Dean replied.

The other line was quiet for a moment. "All right, but I just… never mind. Do good work."

"You too man," Dean said and hung up the phone. He turned around and stared at the two cars in the shop at the moment, one with a transmission leak somewhere and the other with a cracked axle. Both could be managed if he worked late… or he could check out what was so not average about this café come nighttime.

Decisions decisions… but first things first. To the bathroom.


	3. Chapter 3

Eleven twenty two. The cracked axle was replaced but the leaking transmission tube was still leaking. It was going to stay that way for the night. Dean picked up a box of powdered soap to attack the worst of the grease on his hands when Winchester Auto-Repair's phone rang.

"Oh no you don't…," Dean said to the phone, which rang in response. "It's not even ten till closing…just go away, call some other—"

The phone rang again.

Dean stared at the cheap, green device. "I'm not here."

It rang again.

"C'mon, the one night I plan to go out and do someth—"

It rang again.

"Fine!" Dean wiped the soap off his hands with his oil rag and picked up the phone, pausing a moment to put on his pleasant voice. "Winchester Auto-Repair, we're closing in eight - - no, seven minutes, so—"

"Dean! How are ya buddy, this is Zachariah from AAA,"

Dean clenched his jaw. "Zachariah… let me guess, some college kid's run their pretty BMW into a ditch and I need to go pull them out."

Zachariah tsked. "Too quick to judge Mr. Winchester. According to OnStar there's been a major accident on State Highway 59 North, near an off street called… ah… Osage Road. The account belongs to a Norbert Mueller. He's a few days shy of his seventy-third birthday."

After glancing at the local map taped to the back wall Dean asked, "Isn't that near Oscaloosa? Why aren't you talking to what-his-face up there?"

"I just did. Fast-n-Roll Auto's answering machine said they're Biloxi until February 2nd. Sorry buddy, it's gotta be you."

"Fine, I'm going, I'm going," Dean said. "But you and me? We're not buddies. You do your job and I pick up the crap you tell me to. That's it. This is a business relationship, Mr. … whatever your last name is."

"Dean, I'm hurt! After all these years of-"

Dean slapped the phone back into its receiver, grabbed his keys and jacket, and headed out to the Impala. He revved it and pulled out onto Locust, blasting the heat so he might survive his next drive in Levi.

Dean passed the Obolus Café on his way south to the Yard. The lights were dim, and he saw Castiel turning the Open/Closed sign over while locking the front door.

"Unaverage danger, huh?" Dean muttered, glancing around the empty block. "Oh yeah, real uncanny around here…"

Dean kept on to the Yard, parked his baby in its usual spot, and hustled over to the Leviathon. Several revs of the engine later Dean was retracing his path through Lawrence, once again crossing the Kaw north towards State Highway 59. He flicked on the radio in case it had somehow fixed itself after a lifetime of not working, but all he heard was cold silence.

There were multiple reasons why Dean didn't want to be out on the road. One reason: it prevented him from looking into the strangeties of the Obolus Café. The more important reason, though, was that extended time in dark silence made his mind wander, and his wandering mind inevitably returned to the same place.

"You'll never understand what life is like for me as a black woman. You just won't. I love you, but you're never gonna get me."

Dean's mouth twisted. He glanced over at Cassie, sitting in the passenger seat of the Impala. Her hair bounced in the cracked window as she huddled under her Kansas University parka.

"Wouldn't that mean you're never gonna get me either?" Dean said.

"Ugh, you don't understand."

"What don't I get?" Dean asked. "You're black, I'm white, you're a woman, I'm a man. Yeah, there's a shit-ton of differences, Cassie, but why does that matter? When I'm being stupid you're gonna tell me why and I'm gonna learn, and when you're getting on my nerves I'm gonna try not to be a dick about telling you, and then we'll just… make it work. We'll do that thing Sam's always talking about, you know, that… 'Imagining each other complexly' or whatever."

Cassie smiled but shook her head. "Sometimes I wanna smack you but you're too damn cute."

"Eyes on the road," Dean muttered to himself, shaking his head a bit. "Eyes on the road, simple rule of driving, you keep your eyes on the road…"

Dean adjusted his seat and caught a light glare in the rearview mirror. After a few seconds he heard the sirens, and then he could make out the outline of an ambulance.

"That ain't good…," Dean muttered, pulling over to the side of the road. The ambulance flew by, heading for the turn off to Osage a quarter mile up the road. Dean shifted Levi back into drive, taking a breath to prepare for what he was about to see.

A roar built on his left side and then a flash and bang; Dean's eyes made it halfway to glancing at what made the sound before his peripheral vision showed the ambulance rolling off the highway like a tumbleweed. A lone backlight rocketed up towards Osage Road.

"The fuck!?" Dean said, pressing on the gas. He rolled down the passenger window as he approached two EMTs scrambling out of the wrecked ambulance. "You guys all right?"

"Yeah, yeah we're okay," One of them said before looking back at the crushed vehicle, wheels up in the air and tangled up in a farmer's fence. "Jesus, she left a dent!"

"What the hell was that?" Dean asked.

"I dunno, it was… for a second it was just us and then she was on our tail, and then we we're rolling-"

"Who?" Dean asked.

"Some lunatic on a motorcycle," the EMT said. After a pause to check his coworker, the EMT asked, "You going to the wreck on Osage?"

"Yeah, get in, we'll check it out."

"Thanks man but I gotta call this in first… Jesus Christ…," the EMT said, again looking at the ambulance and pulling out his cellphone. Dean rolled up the window and headed down the rest of the way towards Osage, where he could make out the outline of a parked motorcycle.

"What the…," he hissed. The Leviathon's lights caught a woman with bushy black hair and a leather jacket holding up an ancient, diabetically obese Mr. Mueller at the throat. She glanced at Dean for a moment before shoving her free hand into Mr. Mueller's eye sockets.

"THE FU- JESUS MARY JOSEPH," Dean screamed. After a wide-eyed moment of panic he lunged for the handgun under the driver's seat and jumped out of the truck, taking aim at the woman who was already running back to her bike. "Hey! I said HEY!"

"Oh please, drop it Robocop," the woman called back, not breaking her flow of slipping onto the motorcycle and starting its ignition.

"You're not going anywhere till I get some ans—dammit I said stop!" Dean shouted, but she was already revving the engine. For a moment he considered shooting at her, but that could go bad in a whole lot of ways, so he shot at her tires instead. And missed.

The woman revved again, without a helmet, and tore past Dean, kicking up icy dirt and gravel at his face. He aimed his gun at her for a moment but she was already too far for a good shot, heading back towards town. He growled and turned towards the wreck he came to clean up, a pale blue Buick that had an electrical pole wedged deep into its hood.

Norbert Mueller lay with his back on the ground, white haired and slack-jaw. Dean couldn't see the man's face, but as Dean pressed his fingers on Mueller's neck for a pulse he knew wouldn't come, his eyes adjusted to the shadows. Warm blood still rolled down the man's face, starting from his eye sockets, but there was no damage to the eyes at all. They were perfectly fine, though dead empty.

Dean stepped away from the body and stared. What the hell was this? That woman-

He'd seen her before. She was in the crowd of people he shoved out of the way on his way to the front counter when he first found the Obolus.

This indeed wasn't average. This was fucked up.

Dean ran back to the Levi and slammed himself inside, pulling out of Osage and turning South on 59 towards Lawrence. He shot past the still-on-his-phone EMT and focused on the fast vanishing taillight of the motorcycle far ahead of him. After a few minutes he passed Locust, crossed the river, and angrily honked at college kids stumbling around Massachusetts Street. He turned down New Hampshire and found the bike, driver-less, parked in front of the Obolus Café.

Dean pulled into a spot across the street and after a moment of contemplation grabbed his gun. He stepped out of Levi onto the abandoned road, lit by sharp fluorescent streetlights, and jaywalked to the dark café. He pushed the door handle; locked of course. He eyed the security camera in the back corner of the room and for a moment thought he saw it turn towards him, but he couldn't be sure. He banged his fist against the door, and after a few moments waved the gun around in the cold air so he could stow it without melting his skin off.

Dean checked his watch. Ten past midnight. He banged again. Nothing. He slid a finger along the nozzle of the gun. Still too hot. He banged again on the door. Watched the seconds tick away. Stowed his gun. Pounded again.

At 12:25 a light flicked on in the Café's back room. Dean stared at it for a moment, only able to make out the corner of a picture frame in the back hallway, but then Castiel appeared, hair disheveled and wrapping his arms around himself in a dark night-robe.

"Castiel!" Dean yelled. "Open the fuck up!"

Castiel paused behind the counter and stared as a horrified frown grew over his face. He lifted up the divider and went towards the door when the leather woman stepped out of the back room.

"Behind you!" Dean yelled, stumbling back and grabbing for his gun. He saw the woman shout something and Castiel turn around. They started talking. Dean watched wildly as the two's discussion got heated, Castiel pointing his finger over at the door and the woman shaking her head angrily and throwing her hands up in the air. A few moments later Dean could make out a muffled, "What were you thinking?!" followed by "Then what was I supposed to do!?"

Castiel ran his hands through his hair. Something unheard exchanged between him and the woman, who glowered but stalked back into the back room. Castiel's shoulders heaved. After another moment he turned around and walked towards the door, pulling keys out of his pocket and pushing them into the lock. But he didn't turn. Castiel looked at Dean cautiously, then the gun, and then back at Dean, shaking his head slightly.

"No way," Dean said, glaring at the back room. "No fucking way."

"Dean, please, it's okay, no one got hurt tonight," Castiel said through the glass.

"No-one – That bitch picked a guy up with one hand and stuck her fist into his face!" Dean yelled. Castiel glanced up and down the street worriedly but Dean didn't care. "The hell no one got hurt you lying son of a bitch!"

Castiel shuddered. His face lowered and shoulders fell inwards slightly. "It probably looked liked that, but that's not what happened. I'm not allowed to tell you… but Meg can; she'll be out there in a minute."

Dean stepped away from the front door slightly as an incredulous grin slipped over his face. "What the hell is this… What the mother-fucking hell all manner of fucked up shit is this!?"

"It's a way station," a female voice said. Dean whipped around to his left and pointed his gun at Meg, clad in a leather jacket and jeans with a hat reading "Haskell U." She should be freezing just leaning against the building as she was, but she looked perfectly calm as she rolled her eyes. "Oh no, a gun, whatever will I do?"

"What the fuck is this?" Dean asked again.

"A way station, Robocop."

Dean glared at her, ignoring the lights coming on inside the front room of the Café. "A way station for what?"

"Mainly the newly dead," she replied with a wry twitch of her eyebrow. "But, you know, we take lots of clientele. The intern's idea."

Dean blinked and shook his head. "Wha- for the newly dead? What is this, some psycho cult?! The-"

"Look, before you start shouting more profanities at anyone, maybe you should take a little looksee inside and see what I mean," She said with a cock of her head.

Dean held his gun pointed at Meg's face but glanced inside for a moment, then turned his full attention to the front room. Castiel, still in his bathrobe, was walking over to a table carrying a steaming, yellow mug. At the table sat Mr. Mueller sobbing over a small picture. Castiel placed his hand on the man's shoulder and rubbed it gently. The two spoke for a moment before Castiel handed the Mueller the mug, which the large man ignored in favor of the photo. Castiel sat down next to him and stared intently, as the man began to speak.

"What the hell…," Dean whispered. "But he's dead. I just saw him. You… you super punched him in the face."

"Sorry bad boy, but looks can be deceiving," Meg replied, slowly walking over to stand next to him. "I merely picked up the old fart's soul, and that's who's in there."

"His…soul?"

"Oh come on, haven't you heard the old saying, 'Eyes are the window to the soul'? The Christians picked that up from the Greeks, who picked it up from… well, wouldn't you like to know."

Dean continued staring. "The Obolus Café… you need an obolus under the tongue to get a ride across the River Acheron."

"Ooh, bad boy knows a few things," Meg crooned.

"That mug Mueller's holding… is that…?"

"The obolus hand out? Nice try, but that's what old MacDonald's drinking."

"But… it's supposed to be a coin…,"

Meg sighed. "Like anything's ever how it's supposed to be?"


	4. Chapter 4

Sleep butterfly-landed on Dean throughout the night, hesitant and fleeting, flying off for good when his alarm clock shouted at him to wake up. He did so just long enough to slam his hand on the snooze button. At quarter till eight he realized he'd gotten the snooze button stuck, prompting him to skip showering, breakfast, and his coat in favor of running out the door. He threw himself in the Impala with the mantra "shit shit shit shit," throttling through west Lawrence until he arrived at Winchester Auto-Repair, which he discovered he'd never locked up the night before. Because an ambulance was shoved off the highway. And a woman thing punched an old guy so hard his soul popped out.

Plus the Obolus Café was a way station, whatever that meant.

"I was… a late night," Dean said to himself, staring at the front of the shop. "Nothing psycho happened, just… got drunk and… had an acid trip…"

Clearly his imagination hadn't made it with him out the door that morning. Dean stepped out of his baby, trying to numb his thoughts. The attempt left him acutely aware of the air's dry, icy sting and the scratchy crunch of gravel under his shoes. He walked into the front door before walking through it. He stood quietly on the welcome mat, pushing his thoughts down, as the shop's warm air spider-walked up his jeans and jumper sleeves. He itched at the creep and he walked around the main counter where he found the answering machine's message light blinking. Dean pressed the message button and leaned back against the wall.

"This is Winchester Auto-Repair," Mrs. Winchester's voice said without a hint of cancer. "And thanks for your call. We're open 6:30 till 11:30 pm Monday through Saturday. If your call's urgent, you'd best be calling 911. If it's not real urgent but still kinda urgent, then call John on his Cell, he always has that thing on."

That last little bit never failed to make Dean cringe.

A beep and then "Dean!" Bobby's voice rang through the machine. "Where are ya boy? I've called four times now and, hey, I know I said you need to get out more but if you're takin' a morning off at least tell me! There's-"

Dean picked up the phone and dialed the Yard's number. After two rings and a click he said, "Hey Bobby, it's me, sorry man, I, uh… I crushed my alarm clock."

"Hey, don't worry about it, you just gotta call me when that kinda thing happens."

"Mm…," Dean replied.

It was silent a moment. "Dean?"

"What?"

"…How much sleep you get?"

"I dunno, maybe… I dunno. Why?" Dean asked.

"'Cause you usually say 'Well I'm callin' now' after I get on ya for starting late. I found two new heaps in the yard this morning and no note. What happened last night?"

"Ah, nothin', you know just some…wrecks, you know,"

"Take the day off, son."

Dean frowned. "…Excuse me?"

He heard a sigh from the other side. "Take the day off."

"I'm fine."

"Ah, bull crap, Dean. You're straight up… well, things ain't been right for you since the year from hell, especially with wrecks – seriously Dean, one of them was an ambulance, I'd think that bring back some kinda bad memories. You're gonna take a day off to get your brain back in gear, and-"

"I'm fine, Bobby," Dean replied, vice-griping the phone.

"Dean, this ain't-"

"I'll see ya later."

"Boy, listen to me dammit!" but Dean put the phone down in the receiver. His land pushed down against it. Blood ran into Dean's ears and boiled there, tightening his lungs along the way. He felt a scene with every blink: A notebook's empty pages flapping in the wind, the bouquet of dry roses, the weight of that manila letter, the black hands on the old analog clock while he stared out the old house's garage at the empty driveway.

Dean jumped when the door opened. Bobby stalked in with his usual baseball cap, beard, and denim jacket, though the wild look in his eyes wasn't normal. He looked at Dean and said, "Boy, you look like hell. No, you look like hell anthropomorphized itself and pissed on you."

"How'd you-?" Dean shook his head. "Go back to the Yard, Bobby, I'm fi-"

"Oh don't give me that, Dean!" Bobby spat, but his shoulders sank a moment later. He shook his head with remorse. "You look… just like you did when it all ended."

"I said, I'm FINE."

"You're telling me that that ambulance didn't remind you of when your girlfriend died, or John or Mary, none of that?"

"No, but you sure are," Dean snapped. He glared for a moment until he realized Bobby was staring at Dean's hand, which was still pressing down against the phone, starting to crack the plastic casing. "Okay… so I'm not fine, but hey who is? I'm good to work."

"Please, like this you're liable to drop a car on yourself," Bobby said, walking over to the counter and flicking the "Open" sign off. "Then what am I supposed to tell the owners, that I gotta charge 'em extra for unexpected blood-splatter?"

"Funny."

"Dean, you're taking the day off, either by me pulling your stubborn ass out of here or by letting you stand there all day with no pay to show for it," Bobby said. Loss of day was one thing, loss of pay another.

"…And what am I supposed to do with a day off exactly?" Dean slurred, taking a step back from the phone.

"You tell me, you're the brother with all the hobbies," Bobby replied.

"Hunting and fishing don't make me a renaissance man."

"Then expand your horizons you half-archaeologist idgit," Bobby replied, moving towards the door as Dean followed. "Get in shotgun, I'm drivin' you home."

"Would you let it go Bobby? I dropped out, done deal, and I can drive my-," Dean was interrupted by the small rack of junk food and tacky postcards that jumped out in front of him. He grabbed the rack for a moment to keep it from falling over while Bobby gave him the stink eye.

"That means nothing." Dean said.

"Shotgun," Bobby repeated, walking out to the Levi.

Dean sighed, wiped his face with his hand, and turned off the rest of the lights before locking up and getting in Levi's passenger's seat, careful to avoid the unidentified metal wire sticking out of seat's bottom cushion. No amount of duct tape could make a prod from that thing less painful.

Dean watched the ice flows on the Kaw in silence as Bobby drove them south across the bridge, towards Dean's apartment off West 6th. They paused at a red light just across the river as a metallic rumble slid up along side them. There was no reason to think about the noise, or think period, until there was a tap on the driver's side. Dean looked over to see Bobby lowering his window to a woman with bushy black hair and a leather jacket.

"Hey Robocop," Meg said, smiling at Dean before cocking her head to Bobby. "Who's pops?"

"Leave us alone you psycho bitch," Dean shouted. "And you keep your hands away from him!"

"Dean, the hell-!?" Bobby said, but Dean was already fighting to undo his seat belt, only managing to jab his right butt cheek on the duct tape rod by the time Meg chimed in.

"Relax bad boy, papa bear's gotta pulse so nothing doing. I'm just here to tell you the intern would like to have a little chitchat with you."

Dean frowned. "The intern?"

"Cas," Meg replied.

"Look, I don't know you are lady," Bobby started. "But Cassie Robinson's been dead for three years, and-"

"Castiel," Meg shouted. "Castiel, the intern with the high kicks and pretty tea tricks at the ever endlessly curious Obolus Café would like to have a little sit down with ya, capeesh Robocop?"

"What the hell is going on?" Bobby whispered to Dean.

Meg smiled impishly at Dean. "Yeah, Dean, what the hell is going on?" She said. After a moment she laughed. "Cas owes me twenty bucks."

Dean glared at her until she elaborated. "Oh, he was so sure you would reach out to people to try to heal your poor little perception of reality that got run over and left on the side of the highway last night. Cute, really. But you're one of those macho guys who just won't talk about anything important, that's obvious. You think it makes you tough but it really-"

"Okay enough with the sass!" Dean shouted.

Bobby looked at him for a moment. "Girl's seems to know you spot on."

"Shut it Bobby," Dean said, turning back to Meg. "What does he want to talk about? And give me a fucking straight answer."

"Hey fighting couple, the light's green," Bobby said.

"Beats me, but he's pretty insistent on it. Actually, I can't leave you guys until you agree to go talk."

"Hey Ricky and Lucy, I gotta green light, I gotta go," Bobby said as cars started honking behind him.

"Oh, no you don't. I can make sure of that, can't I Dean?" Meg said. The playfulness of her smile evaporated as her hand gripped the Levi's hood.

The car horns brought Dean back to the flapping notebook, made his jaw clench. "Fine! Fine, I'll go talk to him. Bobby, turn left on 6th, go down New Hampshire past the Library, then pull over on the right."

"Good boy," Meg said, stepping away from the window and jumping back on her bike. She shot off towards the Café just as Levi started moving. Bobby rolled up his window and pulled down 6th towards New Hampshire before asking, "Mind telling me what the hell is going on?"

"You wouldn't believe me even if I told you," Dean said.

"Have some faith in me, Dean, I've known the world some too, remember."

Dean crossed his arms and stared down the street for a few moments. "Not like this you haven't."

"Try me."

Dean kept quiet until they reached the Public Library. "That crazy woman's named Meg. She shoved the ambulance off the highway last night like it was the wimpy kid on a pick up football team. Then she punched an old fat guy in the face, but not, grabbed his soul and took it to a Way Station, whatever the hell that means."

Bobby was quiet for a moment. "Yep, haven't had that one."

"You don't believe me at all, right?"

"Not one bit," Bobby sniffed. Dean nodded.

After another block Bobby parked Levi, across the street from the Obolus Café's wordless street sign. Dean cringed as a mother and daughter hurried inside the building, laughing at something unknown. Were either of them human? Were either alive? If so, would they before they left? Dean swallowed hard as he led the way across the street, frowning when he saw a familiar, redheaded woman with large earphones and a computer case walking into the café.

Bobby and Dean stepped inside, wherein Dean realized he'd been shivering. No coat, no warmth. The mother and daughter were sitting at a nearby table and talking fast under their happy breath while Red-Head stood at the front counter. She was holding her iPhone up for Castiel to peer at; he grinned and nodded slowly in affirmation of her song choice.

"The usual?" He asked. She nodded, and Castiel vanished behind the main counter. Red-Head put down some cash on the counter, dropped an extra bill in the tip jar, and met Castiel at the end of the counter, grabbing her drink with a smile. She turned around to see Dean staring at her. She visibly gulped, turned her eyes downward, and scurried over to the table farthest from the door, setting up her computer and seat with her back to the front.

"Nice place," Bobby said.

"Yeah well, don't get too comfortable, we're not staying long." Dean muttered under his breath, taking a few steps forward toward the front counter.

"That's what you think Robocop," Meg said, making both men jump.

"Jesus, could you at least warn people when you go all ninja?" Dean said.

"But that wouldn't be fun," Meg replied. She grabbed hold of Bobby's arm. "C'mere pop's, you're talking to me while you're buddy has his talk with Mr. Free Labor over there."

Bobby stared at Dean wide-eyed as Meg led him away towards one of the tables.

"If you hurt him," Dean hissed.

"Cool your jets Dean," Meg said. " I told you before, he's got a pulse, so he's not in my reign. You have a nice chat."

Bobby stumbled away wide-eyed as Meg pushed him on towards one of the middle tables. Dean pressed his lips together as his heart hammered wildly in his chest – or head, hard to tell. Footsteps to his left made him look back to the front counter, where Castiel was lowering the divider and approaching confidently but carefully.

"Hello Dean," Castiel said gravely. He studied Dean's face for a moment before looking away with a frown. "We should… sit down."


	5. Chapter 5

"I should start off by apologizing. What you saw last night was undoubtedly disorienting and unpleasant, and I'm sorry," Castiel said from his seat in front of the café window.

"Disorienting?" Dean shot back. "Let's try fucked up. But, hey, it's not like you should be apologizing or anything. After all, you warned me that things were un-average around here, that there was un-average danger - the fuck does that even mean, unaverage?"

Castiel stared intently for a moment, somewhere between stern and curious. "How is that healthy?"

Dean frowned. "What?"

"How is that health-"

"I heard you the first time, I meant 'What' as in 'What the hell are you talking about?'"

"You certainly curse a lot," Castiel sighed. "I meant how is verbally attacking someone healthy? I can see that you are angry and upset, and you are right to be. But how is it healthy to slander someone? It makes you feel justified but not vindicated. There is no resolution or peace, only more anger."

Dean's mouth gaped like a fish out of water for a moment before he leaned in to hiss, "That thing shoved her hand into someone's face, and nearly killed two people while she was at it!"

Castiel's shoulders slumped. "Yes… and Meg has been put on probation for the month because of her behavior."

"Oh, yeah, that make me feel loads better. Just peachy," Dean said, sitting back and crossing his arms. The table was quiet for several beats. Castiel looked down at the mug of tea he brought with him and reached out to pick it up, but he merely turned it around in circles.

"What would make you feel better?" Castiel asked.

"What would make me feel-? If there weren't crazy psycho things like this around," Dean waved is arms around at the café. "That'd be an awesome start."

"What else?"

Dean blinked.

"You said that would be a start. What else would be needed to make you feel better?"

"Heh… a bottle of Tennessee Whiskey," Dean replied, though a scene from his youth popped into his mind, of his mother bringing his birthday pie over to him while he sat at the old dinner table.

"We do carry that…," Castiel muttered. "Though it's not used for mortal drinks…"

"Hey, here's a thing that will help me feel better, knowing what the hell all this is, what the hell is going on!" Dean said. Castiel glanced at the mother and daughter, who still seemed preoccupied with their own discussion, before tugging at his collar.

"I'll… try to explain, but I am not allowed to tell you very much," Castiel said. "This place is a way station-"

"Yeah, thanks, I know that already."

"For the recently deceased," Castiel continued. "Psychopomps roam the area for souls severed from their material vessels and bring them here before they go on to the shores of the River Acheron, where Charon will ferry them to their appropriate resting place."

"Hold up, you lost me at the Psycho-pompous-freaks," Dean said.

"Psychopomp," Castiel repeated slowly. "It means guide of souls. Psychopomps have been known as angels, spirits, ravens, demons, many different things, but really they're all just guides for Charon."

"Really? Could have fooled me with crazy lady over there," Dean said, rocking his head towards Meg. He studied the conversation at the distant table, hushed and intense enough to deepen the lines on Bobby's face considerably. "Though if you told me she was a demon I'd believe it. What are they talking about over there?"

"The same thing we are," Castiel replied. "Though your friend will receive a truncated explanation. He doesn't… his position here isn't as unique as yours."

"What does that mean?"

Castiel frowned. "I apologize, I am not permitted to tell you."

"Yeah, 'course not," Dean said.

Castiel shifted in his seat, shoulders low and hands in his lap. "You are not taking this as well as I hoped."

"Yeah well, I haven't had twelve hours to even think about this, to even start to get some bit of and idea what the hell I'm supposed to…," Dean didn't know how to finish, so he looked away instead, tapping his fingers on the table.

"…This feels bigger than you," Castiel said. "Perhaps too big?"

"More like fucking insane! I mean we're sitting here talking about psycho-pompous-head angel things and souls and it's, just, man, I have no idea."

Castiel nodded slowly. "Perhaps this is a vain thing for me to say, but… if you live with that feeling inside you for six months, you will be about where I am right now."

Dean stared for a moment. "So… what, you're a new psycho?"

"Psychopomp, and no, I'm human," Castiel said. "With benefits."

Dean popped an eyebrow. "S'that the intern thing what's-her-face was talking about?"

"Yes… in a sense, I am an intern in the employment of -," Castiel's tongue caught in his mouth, gagging him for a moment. He closed his lips and took a breath, reaching out for his mug and pulling it up for a sip. "I guess I'm not allowed to say."

Dean shook his head. "This is messing with my whole reality sense thing. Like… I expected a chance to pick the blue pill before going down the rabbit hole, you know? I bet you at least got that, but now..."

"… I don't understand the pharmaceutical reference," Castiel said.

Dean stared for a moment. "The Matrix?"

Castiel's eyebrows rose slightly, as if the word was merely interesting.

"C'mon, Morpheus, the One, humanity enslaved by machines, the bad-ass symbolism of Plato's Cave?"

"I know of Plato's allegory," Castiel said. "I don't understand how it applies in this situation."

Dean's mouth dropped. "Holy crap… What about Star Wars? You have to have seen Star Wars."

Castiel's head rocked to the side curiously. "Why would stars fight each other?"

"Jesus, what was the last movie you saw?" Dean asked.

Castiel's mouth opened for a moment, then he closed it and shrugged.

"How long have you been working here? Wait… you said six months?"

"More or less," Castiel replied.

"And what did you do before that?" Dean asked.

Castiel's lips tightened and he looked away, but he sighed, "I, uh… grieved, mostly."

Dean waited a few moments before asking, "You grieved? For what?"

"My family, and also myself," Castiel replied. His gaze flicked out to something beyond the front windows. "This… isn't a pleasant history to listen to, Dean. I will tell it if you want to know… given all that's happened recently I believe you deserve to know as much as I can tell you. After all, the greatest salve to an injury from truth is more truth…," He grinned unhappily and mumbled, "Perhaps Plato's allegory isn't inappropriate for this conversation."

"Yeah, sure, let's hear your sob story," Dean said. Castiel's winced.

"Slandering isn't healthy for you or the person you're attacking," Castiel replied. "It is all around unpleasant."

Dean took a breath and blinked several times. He glanced out the window at the stark winter day before looking back at Castiel. "That… sorry man, that was… I haven't had a lot of sleep, and all this, and… and a lotta people say they've got these bad pasts, and most of them are full of crap—"

"My family was killed in front of me," Castiel said, staring at his tea. "About a year ago. They… we… were very religious. Mormons, actually, from Ogden. After I realized…," he took a deep breath, still staring downwards. "After I realized that I can't… fall in love with women, there was a great deal of fighting. But my sister, Anna, never gave up on any of us, and after several years convinced my parents and other brothers and sisters to accept me. They even started a reform movement within the Church of Later Day Saints…

"Last June, my parents invited me to go with them on a mission trip, the first one I had been on with them since my realization… we went to Ciudad Juarez. It might have been corrupt policemen or a cartel, but nonetheless we were kidnapped and held for ransom, and when no money came from the state or the church… our kidnappers," Castiel swallowed. "Had some fun before shooting us and throwing us in the river… Meg was the one who found me. She delivered my family's souls and then waited for me to die along the riverbank, but… she broke the rules. Carried me to a hospital, and then…," Castiel looked up and around the café. "This."

While there had been many moments in Dean Winchester's life that had left him feeling like crap, there were few wherein he felt absolutely sure that he was, in fact, and ass-face douche bag. This was one of those moments. He struggled for words in the silence that followed, all to aware of how coarsely he'd talked at Cas since walking in the store a few minutes ago.

"You've had something similar happen to you, haven't you?" Castiel said. Dean's eyes snapped onto his, calm and knowing, just like the first time they saw each other. "I saw it when you first came in."

"Oh, well, uh, nothing like that," Dean said with a weak smile. His hands tapped the tabletop again, suddenly envious of Castiel's mug with which his fingers could fiddle.

"The cause isn't important when the end is the same," Castiel replied.

Dean didn't agree, but he wasn't about to argue. He shrugged and let out a long exhale as Castiel stared into his mug. "So… that's it? That's what you wanted to talk about?"

"Yes," Castiel replied. He took a sip of tea, then nothing. Eventually he said, "Yesterday was mint tea with watermelon extract, praline French vanilla cream, and powdered allspice… in case you… wanted to know."

"Thanks," Dean said. "It was… good."

"Not as good as the dragon pearls and brandied cherry juice, if I recall." Castiel said, hinting a grin.

"Heh, I bet souls taste even better," and WHAT THE FUCK was wrong with Dean's brain? He winced and stared at his hands, thinking 'Just die. Do that. Now."

Castiel frowned. "I don't—"

"You don't really eat them so much as swallow," Meg called over from her table. Castiel and Dean looked at her, on arm hanging off the back of her chair. "And the taste depends on the person, kinda like something else, know what I mean Cas?"

Both men stiffened. They knew what she meant but they weren't about to admit it. Well, one might in different circumstances.

The mother and daughter were no longer laughing; the younger was staring at Meg curiously while the mother's face turned horrified. She grabbed her daughter's hand and hurried them out of the café, muttering something about sinful vulgarity along the way.

"What, was it something I said?" Meg fked a pout.

"Yes," Castiel replied with a deep blush.

"Okay, I'm missing something," Bobby said, frowning at the dynamic duo that just left the building.

"Oh, that's okay Pops," Meg said. "Just talk to your boy-toy later, I'm sure he'll fill you in. Actually, he won't, but the look on his face will be priceless."

Dean evaded Bobby's confused stare by looking at Castiel, who seemed to be willing his tea to boil over and kill him. "Would you like anything to drink, Dean?" He asked while getting out of his chair. Meg started giggling, earning her his glare.

"No, uh, I'm good, thanks," Dean replied.

Castiel nodded. He stood there for a moment, looking down at his tea an alternating between which lip he was biting. "Again, I apologize for involving you in all of this."

"Yeah… thanks, I guess. Hold on, aren't you going to tell me that I can't tell anyone about any of this or you'll, I don't know, suck my soul or something?" Dean asked.

"I'm not going to suck your soul, Dean," Castiel replied in an odd tone. "And how many people do you think would really believe you if you told them about what you've seen?"

"Hunh. Good point," Dean said. Castiel nodded once before wandering back to the front counter. Dean saw that Meg's conversation with Bobby was wrapping up to, prompting him to follow Castiel an ask, "Hey… why'd you guys tell Bobby what was going on too? I mean, I'm the one who comes 'round here, he's got nothing to do with anything."

Castiel face said he thought the reason was obvious, but eventually he sighed and smiled slightly. "Dean… No one deserves to carry the burden of a secret alone. When I was first brought into this… I only had Meg to talk to. You've… you've stumbled into this world, and I don't know if you'll stay in it or not, but either way I didn't want you to have to deal with it alone."

If there was a lie buried in what Castiel said Dean couldn't see it, though he certainly tried. After a few moments of staring into those blue eyes he had to look away, finding himself in need of a hard swallow. "Jesus… man, why do you even care? You hardly know me."

"…I don't wholly know why I care, but I would like to keep learning why," Castiel said, looking up to finish, "If you will permit it?

"…Is that some convoluted way of asking me if I'm going to keep coming around here?"

"I… yes."

Dean pressed his lips together for a moment, almost glancing at Bobby. "Yeah," He said quietly. "I think I'll keep coming round. But on one condition."

Castiel looked alarmed. "There are some promises I cannot make, but I will do my best to uphold what you ask of me."

"… See a fucking movie man. The Matrix, V for Vendetta, somethin', got it?"

Castiel paled. "That's… easier said than done. But I will try."

Dean nodded, hearing Bobby and Meg push themselves up from the table behind him. He knocked once on the counter-top before starting towards the door. "I'll, uh, swing by for that next drink… in a few days. Make it a good one."

Castiel's apprehension broke with a slight laugh and he nodded. Dean caught up with Bobby and walked out of the Obolus Café, ignoring whatever Meg was starting to say by letting the door slam behind them. The walk back to Levi was cold and quiet. They got in the car and bobby put his keys in the ignition, but didn't turn.

"Well," Bobby said, but then nothing.

After a few moments Dean replied with, "Believe me now?"

"This has got to be the craziest thing you have ever gotten me into, boy," Bobby said. "Souls?... Psychopomps?...I…" but he had nothing more to say. He exhaled loudly, started the car, and went to business turning around to get Dean back to his apartment.

"Bobby, I can drive, just take me back to the shop and I'll get home in the Impala."

"Heh, nope. After all this, all this, no I think it'll do you good not to be able to drive wherever the hell you wanna for a little while. I'll pick you up tonight so you can go and get it."

Dean wanted his baby, but… he also wanted to rest. His head was still spinning, from memories new and old, from lack of shut-eye, and from this nagging thought he couldn't shake. As Bobby pulled up in front of Dean's apartment complex he realized what the thought was centered on.

Castiel had said "I don't want to suck your soul."And it sounded weird. Because the inflection implied he wanted to suck something else.

Dean almost didn't make it to the bathroom.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning: This chapter has a segment that involves psychological trauma from a car accident. There is a segment later in this long-ass chapter that that aims to pacify that trauma.
> 
> Also, my friend who reviewed this chapter has asked me to say grab a blanket, pillow, box of tissues, or some other cuddleable object.

Friday passed at the grinding pace of daytime television. Dean turned it off when a news segment about the tumbling ambulance came on the afternoon news, but he found the white noise more helpful than silence and turned it back on again. When Bobby came over to bring Dean back to his baby Dean thought he'd be able to drive around town, clear his mind, but with the sun setting early he found his mind going back to the notebook flapping in the wind. He drove back to his apartment, stopping at a drive-thru for dinner, and returned to the numb of banal television.

That night he shut his eyes but snapped them open only a few hours later gripping his sheets, unsure whether he was staring at his closet or the mangled body in the mini-coupe several days ago. He returned to the altar of television to sacrifice his consciousness.

Dean wanted simplicity. Simple rules meant simple pleasures. The world was happier, easier to get through when you had and quick answer for what was right and wrong. Was it really a sin to want that simplicity? If it was it shouldn't be.

Dean fell into his pillow Saturday night. Driving around during the day hadn't removed this cloud of noxious ambiguity from his head. By the time he ate dinner he'd decided he'd just tough out the notebook, the dead roses, and that goddamn mother-fucking clock. Yeah, just ignore it. Get taken down by a bunch of whiney things that happened over a year ago? Stupid. He repeated this mental mantra while his face pressed into his pillowcase.

But thinking of this as a mental mantra reminded Dean of his other mantra, the one that begged God not to let him be attracted to men. God. Heh. Given everything that had happened in the last few days, betting on God's existence seemed about as smart as deus ex machina. Dean might have wanted simplicity, not lazy stupidity.

Though… that mantra reminded Dean of something else. He smirked into the pillow, recalling snippets of his latest fantasy involving a certain winged barista… involving the shower… looking down into those bright blue eyes… or maybe looking up into them, he hadn't figured out which position was better… tearing down the shower curtain… pressing up against the wall and grabbing those arms and—

There was no way he was getting to sleep if he continued down this road. As that thought entered his mind so did another: It's wrong to be attracted to men.

"Fuck," Dean muttered into his pillow. Right as his brain was reminding him of Castiel's words about strength and just liking what you like, Dean got up and grabbed a swig of whiskey before returning to bed. A few more minutes of telling his brain to stuff it, and he drifted.

Buzzing phone. Dean's body said 'No, fuck off, sleeping.' His phone kept buzzing. He opened his eyes, glanced at the clock. 1:55 am. AAA, he thought. By contract he was obligated to answer. He grabbed his cell on cardboard box that acted as his bed-stand and, after a very long groan, answered. "What?"

"You sold the house."

"Sammy?" Dean was now awake.

"Mom and Dad's house, the place we grew up in Dean, you sold it."

"Yeah, last year," Dean said, putting his free hand over his face. "What about it?"

"What the hell Dean! Did it occur to you that maybe you should ask me?"

"Not really," Dean droned. "You were in a real hurry to get out of here, like always, and oh yeah, Merry Christmas. It's a month late but—"

"Why the HELL did you sell our family's house, Dean?" Sam's voice rattled the phone's plastic casing. "What in the world made you think you had the right to-"

"Law school, jack-ass!" Dean shouted back. "You wanted to go to law school, and there were mom's medical bills to pay, then both of their funeral bills and debts, but you wanted law school…"

"…No… No!" Sam yelled. "I got a tuition package! I got loans! You just hated Dad for-!"

"How're you paying those loans, Sam? Oh right, you're not, because they're all in the family's account which went to me after mom and dad bit it. And believe me buddy that tuition package doesn't cover everything, like undergrad loans, the medical bills, funeral expenses, lawyer fees, mom and dad's debts, living expenses for Kansas Ci- - -" He realized he was repeating himself. "You would have known all of this if you'd come home for Christmas, Sam, or any fucking time before that! Seriously, what the hell man!"

"…You shouldn't have sold the house," Sam eventually said.

"Yeah, I got that," Dean said, waking up more. "Why…Dude, you haven't talked to me in fucking months and you call in the middle of the night? What gives, man? What-?"

He heard a click, then a dial tone. Dean sat up and cycled through his contacts list, finding Sam's number, and calling. One ring. Two. Three. On the fifth Dean hissed, "Bitch," and chucked the phone into the darkness. It bounced off the dresser and thumped against the ground.

Dean fell back on his bed, arm over his face, willing sleep to come back to him, but after half an hour he understood the butterfly was gone for the night. He sat up, bleary eyed and numb. He could feel his limbs and fingers, that wasn't the problem. The problem was his brother, and the he didn't want to think about the problem. So how does one not think about something? One numbs, by thought or alcohol, and Dean was too tired to go to the kitchen for the latter.

He stared at the wall for several minutes, hoping that if he was still enough sleep might land on his head again…

A car revved and raced by the apartment, and in the darkness Dean was back on the road, opening his eyes as the blare of ambulance sirens hung like a haze in the air. The notebook… Cassie's notebook, her idea book, was lying on the road, open and pages flapping in the wind, towards the end of her stories. Then he focused on that blisteringly smart and beautiful young woman lying on the other side of the road with her one-eyed stare. The other half of her face was crushed in on a mile marker.

Dean scrambled out of bed and turned on the lights. The moment the dark was gone so was his screaming memory, but it hung outside the windows and his bedroom door, waiting in the shadows to haunt him again.

He couldn't stay here. He didn't know where he could go, but that didn't matter. Dean threw on every light in his apartment as he pawed around for his jacket, shoes, and keys, didn't bother to turn anything off when he ran out the door. After a few minutes of driving he realized that this probably wasn't the best idea either. After all, this was the car that smashed into that pick-up truck. That he smashed into that… the one moment he wasn't watching the road, just that one second… Dean remembered every oily second he spent rebuilding his baby, but he couldn't put her back together all the way. He was supposed to protect her, take care of her, but just like his Dad said, he didn't deserve her.

Hammering heart, Dean pulled over to the side of the road. That was a simple rule: when you're freaking the fuck out, stop driving. Just the thought of something plain and direct he could follow helped Dean calm down a little. He rattled off the other simple rules he knew: Don't stop in the middle of the road, always try the on-off switch first if something isn't working, let a pie rest for at least 3 hours before diving in, coffee for the morning and whiskey for the evening, driver picks the music…

A motorcycle shot past him. For a moment it sent him back to the notebook but something off about it brought him back. Why was an older black woman riding, without a helmet or jacket, behind a young Vietnamese man?

As the question finished formulating in his head he knew the answer. Psychopomp at work. Though his hands were still shaking, Dean put the Impala back in drive and followed Sixth down to New Hampshire until he found himself at the Obolus Café. Sure enough, beyond the window Castiel sat at a table with the old woman who was drinking from a golden mug.

It occurred to Dean, as he got out of the Impala and walked up to the door, that usually he either stumbled into the Obolus by accident or only after a long period of being a sissy. Ironic that he was going right up and knocking only because his brain decided to become a hurricane. Though perhaps that counted as a long period of being a sissy.

Castiel looked up from his conversation and opened his eyes wide, micro-tilting his head curiously. He turned back to the woman and spoke for a few moments; they laughed, and then she turned to look as Castiel got up and walked to the door.

"God, no…," Dean gasped. Missouri Mosley, his family's next-door neighbor, was drinking her last pick me up. This night was fucking hell.

Cas unlocked the door, "Technically-" he said but Dean shoved him out of the way to get inside.

"Ms. Mosley?!"

"Dean Winchester!" She crooned. She got up from her seat and grabbed him into a deep hug, shivering slightly at its end. Dean stood there for a moment: when did she last hug him? …When his mother died. Fucking hell.

Missouri pulled back and smacked him on the side of the head.

"Ow! What the hell-!"

"The hell, what the hell indeed, boy!" She yelled. "What kind of idiot thing did you do to and get yourself killed for!? You were so young, your parents worked so hard to do you well and then you go and get yourself dead at twenty-five!? At least I had diabetes, Dean, I knew my time was comin', but you," she smacked him again. "You stupid idiot!"

"Gah- Wait, wait, Ms. Mosley, I'm not dead!"

"Horse-shi—," she cut herself off, suddenly frowning. She grabbed Dean's hands and pressed her cold skin against him, then grabbed his chin and stared angrily into his eyes. Then the anger passed. "Hunh… well… you've always been a weird one, Dean, I'll give you that."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Dean asked. He looked over to Cas, standing in front of the door with his hands in his beige robe. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Ms. Mosely and Cas shared a look. "I'm not supposed to tell him am I?" She asked. Cas shook his head.

"This night could not get any freakier," Dean mumbled.

"Oh honey, if only you knew…," Missouri said, taking his hand in hers. Then her mouth slanted. "If only you knew a lot of things, really…"

"Why don't we sit down?" Castiel implored, pushing the other two back to the table. Missouri gave Dean a smile and squeezed his hand before returning to her golden cup. "You too, Dean," Castiel said softly, resting his hand on Dean's back briefly, slightly below his shoulder blades.

"Hey, uh," Dean said, pulling away slightly. "You… you gotta minute? I don't wanna, uh, interrupt or anything, you know? This-"

"I have many minutes, but they come after this minute," Castiel replied quietly. "You two seem to know each other… this may help, actually."

Help who? Dean almost spat. Almost. But he was tired in more than one sense, so he followed Cas to the table, sitting down next to someone whose permanent absence in his life was starting to make his chest ache.

"Word of advice, Castiel," Missouri said, holding her cup close to her lips. "This boy loves pie. I can't tell you why but it doesn't matter what's in in, if it's pie he's an adorable little boy all over again instead of this handsome old thing."

"I'll remember that," Castiel replied with a light smile. Missouri smiled too and took a sip of her drink. "Grace has truly found you tonight, Ms. Mosley."

"Maybe it has, maybe it hasn't, but like you said, this ain't the end, not really," Missouri said. "And now I got to see a nice face before I get going. That's a nice way to start this intermission. No reason for me to get all bent out of shape about it."

"What?" Dean said. "Ms. Mosley… this ain't like you. I mean… you're a fighter, and you're just taking this lying down?"

She frowned at him. "Taking this lying down? Dean, honey, I'm dead. Lying down's the only way this goes."

"Up until a few days ago I'd have said the same thing," Dean said, trying to ignore Castiel's worried look. "But, hey, look - - you know about all this psychopomp stuff and souls, right?"

"Duh," she replied.

"Then- - wait, what? You knew about all this?"

"Wha-? Boy, no!" She shot back. "That boy that picked me up explained the basics, and then this nice man's been filling me in on the rest. You know I catch on to things pretty quick, and this Castiel fellow explains things nicely. I've got the jist, and that's all I really need."

"What about your life?" Dean said. "I mean come on! What about making those psycho people put your soul back?"

Missouri leaned back in her chair and laughed, downing the rest of her drink.

"Dean," Castiel murmured. "That's not how this works. Psychopomps only collect souls that have disconnected from their bodies. They can't pull a soul out of someone or put it back in..."

Dean glared back.

"Hoo… and you thought I was the one who'd need a talking to?" Missouri mused. She pushed herself back from her chair. "Thank you, Castiel, really dear, you were just what the doctor ordered in all this… I'm ready."

"You sure?" Castiel asked.

"What?" Dean blurted out. "But you just-! No, wait, c'mon-"

"Yes, I'm sure," She said, standing up. Castiel moved towards the back of the café but Dean gripped his arm.

"Now wait just a second," Dean's voice cracked at the end. He glared between the two of them for a moment before saying. "There's gotta be some way to put her back. You're the intern, you outta know how, so put her back!"

"What are you getting all worked up about?" Missouri said. "I kicked it, honey, you can't unkick anything."

"Bull crap, this whole, this big soul reaping harvest thing," Dean muttered. "There's gotta be a way to stop it, so fucking stop it!"

"Honey," Missouri said, stepping forward and taking Dean's hand. He shook it off. She frowned. "Dean Winchester, what's wrong?"

"What's wrong?! You're dying's what's wrong!" Dean shouted. "Everyone's dying dammit!"

"…Yeah, I'm dead, everyone's gonna be one day or another," she replied. She sighed and took his hand again. "Look… you're a good kid, baby, you're such a good boy that's had a whole lotta shit thrown at you."

She grabbed both his arms and pulled him so he had to stare into her eyes. "But don't you get stuck in all that now. There are hell years, baby, and there are heaven years and there are some years thrown in the middle somewhere. And those Hell years, they aint easy. But you know what they say about hell, dontchya?"

"Ms. Mosley…"

"Answer me, boy, I aint got forever."

Dean gasped sharp air, so sharp it stung his eyes. "…You keep on walkin'."

"That's right, baby, you keep on walking," Missouri said. She let go of his arms and patted the sides of jacket gently, starting to tear up herself. "You may not like something that happens, but don't regret it, just let the matter be and keep growin', you hear?... I said you hear?"

"Y-yes ma'am," Dean said. Dammit, too much. His face was breaking down, this was too much, he couldn't take this again, not another mother, no, God of all Gods.

"Now gimme a hug before I go," She said, and didn't have to ask twice. Castiel took a small step backward and bowed his head as Dean held on to Missouri for her dear life, hoping he could keep it with him.

"Shh, baby, it's okay, shh,"

"I'm so sorry, Ms. Mosley," Dean whispered.

"It's okay, honey, really,"

It felt like minutes when Castiel finally cleared his throat. Dean glared at him, wishing he could use every memory of Missouri meeting Mrs. Winchester over the lawn to share pie recipes as incendiary bombs against this wing-tattooed jackass. So what if he'd had his whole family knocked off at once? It wasn't like this, watching everyone who you ever thought cared about you fly away one by one, never knowing which was going to leave him next.

"Whew," Missouri said, wiping her eyes with her hand. "Whew baby, gone made me a mess."

"If you're ready Ms. Mosley?"

"Yeah, yeah I'm ready," She said. She took Dean's hand and led him with her as Castiel guided them back to the back of the shop, lifting the divider for them. Dean expected the barista to tell him he couldn't come, but blue-eyes said nothing, just led the way to what looked like a storage room.

Castiel flicked on the light to the peach colored room with wooden shelves full of teas and coffee beans and who knew what else. He unlocked a metal cellar door, opened it, and held out his hand to Ms. Mosely. She nodded once and squeezed Dean's hand again, though this one felt more born out of fear than consolation.

"You keep your head up, Dean," She said, looking up at him. "I don't want to see your chin draggin' in the dirt next time I see you."

Dean scoffed and shook his head. If he were a tough guy he'd smile at that. He couldn't smile. He shook his head slowly, staring at the distant nothing between Missouri and Castiel.

"No, really honey, I got a feeling we'll be seeing each other real soon, and not in the way that means you gotta die too."

"Let me guess, you've got one of your feelings?" Dean monotoned.

"Am I ever wrong?" She shot back. After a moment he shook his head slightly, the best lie he could give her.

"I'll see you soon, then, little Winchester," She said with a full smile. One more hand squeeze, and then she was off in Castiel's arms. Blue-eyes helped her down the steps slowly, and Dean hated it, all of it, this whole fucking deal, this whole fucking everything.

And then… he heard her humming. Dean stepped forward and peered down the steps. They were already out of view.

A goodbye kiss. It's the thing Dean never gave his mother before the doctors swooped in to scoop out her organs. He hadn't even thought to give it to Ms. Mosley- - he ran down the stairs, trying to shake the memory of those dry roses out of his head, and started running down the dirt path heading north until a hand shot out and grabbed him.

"Well, if it's not Robocop himself," Meg said, jumping in front of Dean and pushing him back. He tried to dodge around her, but she mirrored him perfectly. "Sorry big boy, but you can't go any farther then where you are now."

"No, I know her, I forgot to-"

"I said it once, and I'll say it again," Meg said slowly. "Sorry, but you stay here."

"But I-!"

"Were you dropped on your head as a kid or something?" She said, crossing her arms. "You. Here. Not there. Here. Staying. Not moving. Ya getting any of this?"

"Look you psycho bitch, you outta-"

"We-he-hell, and you kiss your momma with that mouth?"

Dean glared at her, wanted to knock her snotty little head off with a golf club. But his anger shivered for a moment before petering out. Almost no sleep two nights in a row –or was it three?- and going from bewildered to pissed to freaking out to having his heart go through an industrial strength garbage disposal as yet another caring soul left him… his fight was done. "Fuck you."

"I'd like to see you try," Meg smiled. As Dean slowly took a step back, and Meg let herself lean against the wall, he could hear the humming again. No, now it was singing. At first he thought he knew what it was, that old country song about going through hell and keep on going or whatever, but he quickly realized it wasn't that at all.

"Uh… psycho bitch, do you know what she's singing?"

"Come on Dean, I know your name, you could least salvage the last little bits of worthwhile chivalry your species possesses and call me by mine."

"Heh, yeah, or you could bite me."

"Kinky," Meg said. "But no thanks."

They watched in silence for a few moments again. In the distance Dean could make out a bright opening at the end of the hall with golden light coming from it, along with the sound of rushing water.

"Oh yeah, I do know this song. Oldie but goodie," Meg smiled. "It's Eyes on the Prize."

Dean said nothing, only watching the last woman he could rely on, however sporadically, vanish into the light. Her song flickered out.

It only took a minute of hearing distant water running for him to want silence. Dean took several harsh breaths before turning and walking back to the steps. He heard footsteps behind him. "Leave me the fuck alone."

"Chill, I'm just doing my job," Meg replied coolly. "How'd you know her anyway? Last time I checked weren't white men supposed to not get along all that well with women of color?"

Dean paused on the steps for a moment. He should explode, but he had nothing left to use as internal explosive material. Save an idea. He launched himself up the stairs, and sure enough he heard Meg bounding up behind him.

"What? Come on Robocop, how'd—" He got to the top of the steps and slammed the cellar door closed behind him, and not a moment later did he hear a loud clang and a see a small dent pop out in the metal. This was followed by the unmistakable sound of a body tumbling down a flight of steps.

When he heard a loud "OW, MOTHER-FUCKER!" from below Dean threw a victory a massive punch and yelled back, "How's that for doing your job bitch!"

It was lame, but frankly fuck it all.

Only a few moments and thumping sounds later the metal door flew open, and Meg, as well as a very large, red lump on her forehead, glowered at him from beneath.

"Really?" Dean laughed. "You think you can make tonight any worse? Heh, c'mon, let's see you try!"

A hand appeared on Meg's shoulder. She sighed angrily and rolled her eyes, but stepped out of the way for Castiel to step forward. He carried his robe in one arm, wearing a short sleeve, white v-neck shirt and long, striped sleeping pants which looked wet around the ankles. "Thank you Meg, there's some ice in the freezer for your head."

"Yeah, I know," Meg replied. "It can also hold the head of an ass-face if you clear out enough space-"

"Thank you Meg," Castiel ordered. Dean was used to hearing the barista speak calmly or kindly, sometimes even playfully, but never authoritatively.

God there was just too much happening in one night.

Meg stepped up the rest of the way into the storage room, glaring at Dean, and walked off through another doorway. Castiel closed and locked the cellar door. He looked at Dean for a moment, then away at the doorway Meg walked through, down to the Cellar, then back to Dean. "…I don't imagine there is any part of this evening that has passed very pleasantly for you…"

"Heh, no fucking shit, ya think?" Dean slurred. He stepped back, falling against one of the racks of drinkables.

"I didn't realize… if I had known that you and she were close, Dean, I wouldn't have…" Castiel pressed his lips together, wringing his robe between his hands.

"Dude, just stop," Dean said, shaking his head. "You just look stupid."

Castiel's apologetic gaze hardened into a frown. Good. Dean knew how to handle angry people. A set of simple rules.

"This has nothing to do with looks, Dean," Castiel growled. "I'm trying to apologize for putting you in a painful situation… again."

"Save it man, really, it's just kinda, you know, the whole unaverageness running around here."

Castiel shut his eyes in a wince, but it felt good to Dean. Someone else gets to feel some pain for once. Instead of him. Nice.

"You're resorting to slander again," Castiel said, taking a breath. "You only do that when you're in pain."

"Heh, oh yeah, you go ahead and think that," Dean sniffed. "See, you don't know anything about me, man. I'm just an ass. And you, heh… you're just some supped up, perfect little pretty guy with a few fancy words and flirts and shit, a job that's a bit cooler than some high-schooler's part-time gig, and an over active caring organ somewhere inside you. And me? Hah, nothin' in common with any of that. You can't fucking know me."

"…You're good at this," Castiel whispered and swallowed, still clutching his robes.

"I'm good at a lot of things," Dean shrugged. "But's it's not like—"

"For the love of everything holy and beautiful in the world would you STOP!" Castiel shouted. There was a clatter in the room Meg walked into, which Dean presumed was the kitchen. "I know you slander and bully people when you're in pain because that's why anyone slanders or bullies people! And gracious Dean, you knew the woman when you were a child, she was telling me about how she looked after you and your brother when we were at the river's edge, and the way you two were speaking to each other… only the monsters in the deepest caves of hell wouldn't feel incredible pain to go through what you just went through!"

"Well I'm a monster then, sorry to fuckin' disappoint!" Dean yelled.

"No, what you are is a terrible liar," Cas shot back. "You're not a monster, Dean, and you know it! And I never claimed to know everything about you, only parcels-"

"Save it, pretty boy, you don't even care about me or any of this, you-!"

Castiel grabbed Dean and shoved him back again the racks, staring directly into his eyes.

"Remember two days ago? You wanted to know why I care? I told you I didn't know why but I wanted to keep getting to know. Well, unlike you, Dean Winchester, I'm a very good liar. Of course I know why I care about you; I care about you because you get it. When you see too much death but death keeps coming to your door to pull away everything and everyone you ever cared about, no, ever even had an opinion about, it rips you apart, and then their ghosts don't let you sleep or even know peace!

"But it can be worse still, because I have to stew in the knowledge that this was my fault. I was the one that started the civil war in my family and I couldn't stop it, and I'm the one that abandoned all of my friends not once, not twice, but three times, Dean! My entire makeshift family in the church, then my allies the city, the only people who thought that I was worthy enough to one day go to heaven so they inked on me their gift of wings, and then those beautiful people in the reform movement, I lost all of them! Not just my family, but everything! You know how incredibly impossible it is to find someone who could possibly understand to lose everything repeatedly!

"I never thought that I would ever be able to share anyone's company again and mean the smile I put on my face. But then you walked in the door and I made a guess and I took a chance asking you a question and then I realized I found someone who understands how much crap there is to all of THIS!" He waved his arms wildly around, signaling the café, the cellar, the sky.

Castiel seethed for a few moments, dropping his arms and catching his breath. "And then you showed up tonight, after things were finally calming down, and I saw something was haunting you, but then I let you in and…I ruined everything again."

There was no fight left, only the raw Dean.

"Are mommy and daddy getting a divorce?" Meg called out from the room with the freezer. Castiel sighed and looked away, taking a step back from Dean and picking up his robe from where he dropped it.

But Dean breathed a small laugh and whispered a smile.

Castiel glanced at Dean for a moment cautiously before saying, "I apologize… for continuing to cause you emotional pain… and for shoving you into Colombian coffee."

"It…," Dean started to say, but he didn't know how to finish that sentence. He closed his eyes. Dean shook his head, pressing at the bridge of his nose for a moment and then covering his face with his hand. What the hell was this? This life thing, this death thing, this simple complexity?

"Shall I," Castiel began, standing near the doorway back to the front of the café. "Leave you to show yourself out?"

Missouri Mosley was dead. Ish. The darkness was making Dean relive the start of the end three years ago. And who knew whether his brother had left any more gifts of guilt on Dean's phone. "No…," Dean said.

Castiel frowned. He looked down at his balled up robe, and his face slowly softened. "I'm sorry for yelling at you before," He said.

Dean opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling, shaking his head. "God you're right."

"…Yes, I am sorry for-"

"No, no Cas, I mean you get it. This sucks… I dropped out of my 'friens' radar, watched my brother drift away, then my Mom got sick and lost her mind, then my dad died, then mom… and the person I thought was my everything," He killed her, but he couldn't say it. Deep breathes. "And now I can't do what I'm good at, I just fix cars and pick up the dead bodies off the road. It's like… you just go through the motions, hoping that no one gets close enough to notice that you're not there at all… And now Ms. Mosley, God why'd it have to be her?"

Dean's face was threatening to break again. More deep breathes. Bite down hard. His eyes reddened and wetted but didn't shatter. Suddenly he felt something warm next to his left arm – he looked over and found Castiel leaning against the rack next to him, staring off into the same nothingness Dean was watching a moment before. He smelled of cinnamon and butter, which got stronger as he leaned against Dean's shoulder slightly. It took a moment for Dean to realize Castiel wasn't trying to use him as support, but rather offering it. Dean leaned into Castiel in return, gulping in hard chunk of air.

"She seemed real peaceful on the way down," Dean said after a moment to hold back any hiccups.

"She seemed like it, yes," Castiel replied. "But she was also very scared. Really, I think the people who do the best are the one's that feel that fear but keep walking. And… I think when she saw you she realized that she had something to do. Before you came in she was asking me to make sure all the people she cared about in her life had someone to watch over them… and I couldn't promise that, and I worried it would build regret in her mind. But then she saw you, and she saw we knew each other… and she knew that… well, I don't want to be guilty of vanity, but I think she knew that we are familiar enough to try to watch out for each other. And knowing that, and knowing that you loved her… I think that made her brave."

"Dammit," Dean said. His eyes broke, and the crying started, quickly turning hot and messy. A few moments in and he felt Castiel rubbing the spot between his shoulder and his neck, but blue-eyes said nothing. A few moments longer and Castiel's arm wrapped around Dean's shoulders and turned him in towards Castiel's body. Dean's head landed next to Castiel's neck, but he didn't try to complete the hug or say anything. Dean grabbed onto Cas's shoulder, but that was all. They simply leaned on each other.


	7. Chapter 7

Cinnamon. Butter. When Dean could name the smells his aching eyes opened.

This was not his bed.

A silver analog clock stood on a small, live edge end table next to the bed, telling Dean it was almost 11 in the morning. A windy howl rattled the window near the bed, startling Dean for a moment but giving him enough energy to get up. Well, he was still wearing clothes, that was good. Or possibly bad. What the hell happened last night?

He stared into air, waiting for memories to give some context to his present location. Dean’s mind gave him the song Eyes on the Prize and he remembered almost everything with a harsh wince. This was an ache in his chest he hadn’t wanted to remember: after mom died he’d cut himself off from pain, not even letting his father’s death bring him back to it, but here it was. After his grief shivers and tears passed, Dean stood up and found his way to a small bathroom. His shoes were next to another side door, as was a hamper with several white, button downs—

Oh. He knew where he was now. The cinnamon and butter smell should have been a giveaway. Dean stared wide-eyed at the mirror in the bathroom, trying to remember if anything happened last night. His abdominals didn’t have any post-sex ache nor his groin any lasting elation, so… yup, still three years without sex. Nice, his streak was still going. Strong work.

Dean washed his face, but it didn’t remove the itch of a few too many days without a shower. One stood next to him, open for the taking… and it looked uncannily like the shower in his wet fantasy… but nah, that’d be kinda creepy. As he turned to leave he caught the glint of refracting light, and he paused at the bathroom door to look back.

Some water still caught on the glass shower door. Meaning someone had used it within the last several hours. There was only one person that someone could be.

Well how was that for inspiration for morning wood?

He rubbed himself for a moment, and then it was no going back, so Dean yanked his pants down and right as the going got good there was a clatter at the bedroom door.

“Shit fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Dean hissed, stuffing himself back into his pants and trying to will the red heat on his face to immediately die. He heard the bedroom door creak open, and Dean stepped out of the bathroom with the best innocent smile he could muster. He found himself facing a bald, red bearded man with unnaturally drooping skin. “I, uh – look man, this isn’t what it looks like.”

The man stared at Dean for a moment before turning his stare around the rest of the room.

Dean frowned. “Uh… hello?”

The man said nothing. He stepped further into the room, dressed in the gray, stained linens of a beggar, and walked over to the bed. He bent down, sniffed it long and deep, then turned to face Dean. His pupils were grayed over in blindness.

“Ah,” The man rasped.

Dean continued to stare, one eyebrow raised in bewilderment.

The man turned and walked back towards the door, but he missed by a foot and slammed his face into the wall, knocking over the top parts of a stack of books. His hands reached out, found the doorknob, threw it open with a mechanical jerk, and he stumbled out of the room. Dean watched the man go down a thin, yellow hallway before turning left down a flight of steps. Dean followed the man carefully down into the small kitchen, where the man turned out the door Dean recognized as the way into the storage room. By the time Dean reached the door the man was gone, though Dean could hear clanging beneath the cellar doors.

Eeriness was one way to kill a boner. Dean glanced over his shoulder several times on his way back upstairs to collect his shoes, which he put on his feet with the door open and his stare fixed at the far end of the wall. There were some things about this place that even a pair of blue eyes couldn’t un-creep.

That didn’t stop him from pursuing blue-eyes though. Dean went back downstairs and edged out of the storage room into the front room carefully, keenly aware that Castiel was running back and forth from the front of the main counter to different copper devices behind it. This was the busiest Dean had seen the café, aside from that first morning. When he noticed the upscale clothing most of the clientele were wearing he figured out the reason: Church had just let out.

How do I get out of here without everyone noticing? Dean asked himself, ducking back into the storage room. Castiel grabbed a cup from beneath one machine and ran down to the end of the counter, and for a moment Dean felt pissed that Castiel didn’t notice him, but then Dean realized he was being stared at. His eyes snagged on the red-headed woman with gray eyes, doughnut ear-phones, and a Kansas State hoodie. She had the cup Castiel gave her raised to her mouth right when her eyebrows popped high. She shot a look at Castiel, then back at Dean, then Cas, and back again, eyebrows somehow getting higher with each glance.

“What are you looking at?” Dean snorted at her. She did one more Cas-to-Dean run around before her slow, quiver of a grin turned into a smile. She tugged at the neck of her hoodie and pulled it down to her collar, exposing an equal sign tattoo. She quickly pulled her hoodie back up and returned her grin to her coffee.

Castiel hurdled down the copper corridor, finally catching Dean’s eye. “Ah, good early afternoon, Dean, how did you sleep?”

Dean glanced at the Redhead, who had pulled off her earphones, before looking back as Cas, whose focus had turned to pumping hazelnut extract into someone’s drink. “Uh… fine.”

Redhead snorted a giggle, again hiding behind her cup.

“Okay, look you-” Dean began, pointing at the young woman, but Castiel cut him off.

“Do you two know each other?”

“Nope!” The woman replied with a sly smile.

Dean’s shoulder muscles tensed, but Castiel’s head turned curiously to the side. “Charlie Bradbury, Dean Winchester. If you excuse me for a moment, I have to top this hazelnut mocha frappe with one half soy foam and the other half regular,” and away he went.

Charlie popped her eyebrows before turning and walking towards a table, dropping her computer back on the table-top and pulling out her pc.

“Hey! I said HEY!” Dean said, but she didn’t stop. He cursed under his breath and vaulted himself over the counter, startling other nearby customers. Charlie jumped too, but Dean didn’t care so much about that. “Nothing happened, you got that? I just passed out here last night, that’s all!”

“Okay…,” Charlie said, watching him warily while she opened up her computer. “I didn’t say anything did.”

“No but you were thinking it,” Dean shot back.

Charlie stared at the ceiling for a moment before nodding. “Yeah, yeah I was.”

Hunh. Frankness. Dean hadn’t expected that. “Nothing happened.”

“Okay.”

“So don’t go thinking that or telling anyone that.”  
“…Why would I tell the god-fearing people of Lawrence that a barista and some tall guy were going at it the weekend before Martin Luther King day? Which doesn’t mean I think they were, er, you are, uh, were. I mean, just hypothetically.”

Dean’s mouth hung open, carrying a come-back to a different response then that. He fish mouthed for a moment before saying, “You wouldn’t.”

“And risk the god-fearing horde descend on me? No thank you, I’ll stick with repelling the righteous hordes I can crush into lots of tiny little pixels rather than the bible-thumping ones,” she replied, turning her attention to her computer.

Dean stared for a moment. “…Wait, were you talking about the Righteous Hordes of the Seraphim? From the MORPG Hunters in the Apocalypse?”

Her gray eyes snapped onto his in glee. “You Horde or Devil’s Dispatch?”

Dean smiled. “Eh, I was kind of a free agent, doing the quests I wanted from either story arc - - whoa, hold on, why’d you say bible-thumpers would go after you?”

She turned her head slightly and looked at him questioningly, as if the answer should be obvious. “…Did you miss the tattoo?”

“No, I saw that, but what’s math got to do with—“

“Ohhhhhhh I can’t believe I just did that…,” Charlie hissed, slipping down into her chair and crossing her arms. For a few moments her eyes jumped between the screen and Dean until they went to something behind him. Dean turned to find Castiel standing a foot away, carrying two card-stock cups and a sweaty forehead.

“Am I interrupting?” Castiel asked in an unusually gravelly tone.

“That’d be awesomesauce…,” Charlie groaned. A moment later she looked at him directly and said, “Nope!”

Castiel glanced at the two of them querulously for a moment before handing Dean one of the cups. He thanked Cas, wary of Charlie’s gaze, as Castiel pulled a chair up between the two and sat down gracefully, breathing a deep, soundless breath. As the table’s silence was filled by the chatter of the church-going caffeinated, Castiel slowly looked at Charlie, hiding in her hoodie as she mussed around on her keyboard, and over to Dean, who stared at the table with an expression two steps towards constipation and one step from awkward confusion.

“I believe I interrupted something,” Castiel said carefully.

“What does a math tattoo have to do with bible-thumping hordes?” Dean asked, ignoring Charlie’s panicked glance and hand wild hand expressions to drop the topic. Castiel stared at him for a moment before looking over at Charlie who looked at Cas as student caught misbehaving by her teacher, and she sank down into her chair, pulling the hood of her hoodie over her head.

“You refer to the equality tattoo on Charlie’s collar,” Castiel replied. Charlie winced. “It is a symbol for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and asexual, used to indicate a safe space for people who do not live as hetero-normative. Many people have adopted it as a sign of gay pride or as acceptance of their sexual or gender identity.”

“Hunh… cool,” Dean said honestly. He looked over at Charlie, whose eyes were hidden by her bright red hood and hair. “So… are you…?”

“I can only fall in love with men,” Castiel interjected. “And Charlie can only fall in lo- ow, Charlie that hurt. It’s fine for Dean to know, he’s an ally.”

She poked her head out, glancing between the two men. “He is?”

“I am?” Dean asked.

Castiel sighed as a patient friend does in a movie theater when their viewing partner keeps asking questions. “An ally is a heterosexual person who accepts and values non-heterosexual people despite their differing sexual preferences.”

As Dean nodded slowly and Charlie inched out of her hiding spot, it dawned on his frazzled mind that Castiel thought he was straight. He remembered when Cas told him that he only fell for guys, how there had been an awkward silence and a pained look on his face. The pain was rejection. Cas believed there was no mutual attraction, and he didn’t try to push the matter (aside from saying no one was going to suck Dean’s soul).

Charlie started talking animatedly with Cas, who leaned over in his chair to see what was happening on her computer screen. Dean leaned back in his chair, at first staring at the duo but then into the deep space between them. Who the hell does that; try to comfort and reach out to someone who’s more or less implied their attraction grosses them out? 

Is this guy really human? Dean wondered carefully. How… why would someone keep pursuing someone else just as a friend when they want more?

His mother came into the view of his memory. She gave him a pained smile after what he told her. Tell each other secrets, wasn’t that the rule of their private game?

“Do you really think Aaron Bass is cute, Dean?” She asked him quietly.

“Yeah, and Lisa Braeden too, but Aron’s way cuter --,”

“Shh, quiet Dean, shh…,” She told him, dropping her knees into the grass of the front lawn. She glanced over at Dad, as he talked with Ms. Moseley about something unknown and held Sam, whose face was scrunching up in his tell-tale ‘I have a nasty diaper on me and you’d better get it off’ look.

“Dean, I will always love you, but you have to keep that secret, okay? You have to keep that secret very, very deep inside you, baby.”

“But why?”

“Boys aren’t supposed to like boys, baby… that’s what a lot of people think, anyway…,”

Dean’s eyes widened in panic. “Does that mean I’m bad momma?”

She winced and opened her mouth, but couldn’t answer. After a few moments she said, “No, no dear,” but he knew she was lying. No one ever believed Dean’s lies, so it made sense he never believed anyone else’s.

“I’m sorry, Momma,”

“Oh honey, come here,” She said, pulling Dean into a warm hug. She held on longer than she usually did, frightening Dean even more. “There’s nothing bad or wrong about you baby, okay? I love you so much, don’t you ever forget that. This’ll be our little secret. You can come tell me whenever you think a boy or girl is cute, baby, and I’ll love you and it’ll be fine dear, but you gotta promise not to tell another soul, okay?”

“Okay, momma,” Dean whispered, though he didn’t wholly know what was going on. It all seemed so much bigger than him.

“And I mean it, not a soul, especially not your daddy, got it?”

Dean came back to reality Castiel quirked his head to the side like a confused puppy while watching Charlie press her nose close to the computer screen, clicking madly and whisper something about damned horde. Dean exhaled long and slow, before unaware he’d been holding his breath. 

The last week replayed in his mind. On happenstance he found a café that snapped him out of his everyday-is-the-same, found someone who cared about him because they both knew that life was no easy game to win, no clear good guys or bad guys like in Hunters if the Apocalypse. His entire perception of reality was thrown over and the debris had barely settled, not just by the whole psycho-soul thing but also by this man who was impossible, who was basically completely alone but still tried to cultivate friendship with someone who, for all he knew, rejected him. This week threw him back into the night terrors he thought he’d pushed away after Dad died, after he sold the house and everything…

And Ms. Moseley. Dad had gotten a call from AAA that day years ago, so he ran, leaving it to Ms. Moseley to take Sam and change his diaper there on her front lawn. She did it because circumstance demanded it, but she came over to the Winchester house that night and gave Dad one hell of a talking to about the place of family before a job.

She did it because she had to, but then when she didn’t have to she raised hell. She said last night that you can’t unkick anything, but she never said you couldn’t kick back.

Something red was growing in Dean’s stomach, pounding up towards his heart, but he could feel it was going for his throat, his mouth, and he wouldn’t be able to keep it back. Dean jumped out of his chair, startling Charlie and Cas, as well as a few other people nearby, but this time it was that latter category of the living that he didn’t care about.

“What is it?” Castiel asked, getting up too, looking concerned and… restrained. God that wasn’t fair.

“Just - - Ahh, I just gotta go do something real quick, just, you know, forgot about it last night,” He said, zipping up his coat and buttoning it. “Just… Cas stay here, got it?”

Castiel looked over to Charlie before looking back at him. “Shall I stay at this table or-?”

“No, not this—ah, forget it, just stay. And you!” He pointed to Charlie, whose eyes widened. “Kick horde ass.”

The feeling was spreading, down to his hips and legs as it reached up and swallowed his lungs. Dean caught a glimpse of Charlie smile and Castiel’s head turn as spun around and ran for the door. He was in the Imapala, Led Zepplin blaring, half way to his apartment when the red buzz reached the bottom of his throat and he had to pull over. It shook his fingers and made his feet shudder against the brake pedal, but it took his tongue and then he shivered all over his body. Once again he rest his forehead on the steering wheel, and it made him laugh, the circuity of this week.

“Bi,” he rasped.

Nothing happened.

“Bisexual,” he said. Again, no great lights or exploding feelings. In fact, the red buzz seemed to have vanish as fast as it had first arisen. He could still feel it’s residual heat on his cheeks as he said, “I’m… no. No secrets, no fucking secrets…

“Bi,” He said again, trying to get used to the feeling. “Bi bi bi bi bisexual fucking think guys and chicks are hot, bi bi not fucking wrong or bad no, no secrets, I’m bi, I’m bi! I’M FUCKING BI GOD DAMMIT!”

This time the Impala honked, but that was because he accidentally punched the steering wheel.

“I’m fucking…,” he said again, leaning back in the front seat and spreading his fingers through his hair. The hell. He was bi. He was bi and he liked that Cas guy, dammit.

After catching his breath Dean pulled the car out of park, got turning back onto the road and driving on to his apartment. “No ally, I’m bi… heh, Jesus, Mary, Joseph… the hell is my life?”

He parked and brought himself up to his abode. He started turning off the lights around the one bedroom apartment but found that the ghosts of last night hadn’t left the shadows, so he left stopped as he approached the bathroom hallway. Dean walked back into his room, picked up the covers from where he threw them in his frenzy to get out before, and tossed them back on the bed. He found his phone near one of the garbage bags that stood in for a dresser. One new message, from Bobby.

Dean listened to the message, but it was just Bobby checking in, saying he wanted to talk eventually about the Café. Dean dialed the Yard’s number and got the machine, so he called Bobby’s cell instead.

“Yullow?” Bobby said.

“Hey man, it’s me, got your message a sec ago.”

“Dean?... Are you high or something?”

Dean pursed his lips. “Why is it every time I talk to you ya start assuming things, Bobby?”

“I dunno, maybe ‘cause in the last few days you’ve been psychologically swinging one or another faster than a cheap Vegas hooker?”

“Nice, real charming, old man.”

“Save my best stuff for Sundays. So… you got time to talk about that shop full of the Psychopomps?”

“Ahh, no. No, actually, I uh… I got something I gotta take care of today, but I’ll catch up with you tomor—wait, that’s MLK day - - Tuesday, I’ll grab you Tuesday and we can talk.”

“…You sure you haven’t been smoking somethin’?” 

“I’ll talk to you later Bobby,” and as Dean was closing his dumb phone he snapped it back open and said, “Whoa, hey, Bobby, you still there?”

“Yep, I’m still here.”

“Hey, go check on ol’ Ms. Moseley, would ya?”

“What? What’s going on with Missouri, Dean?”

After a moment to gain composure Dean said, “I was at the café last night, and… she came in. Well, her soul anyway. I kinda saw her off. I think that place is the real deal, Bobby. And if I saw Ms. Moseley off, then her body…,”

Dean heard a sigh. “Damn… yeah, I’ll go check it out. Can’t say I still wholly buy this soul thing, but… yeah, I’ll check it out.”

“Thanks Bobby,” Dean said, and hung up. He pulled a card out from his back pocket, the card with his last free drink on one side and the Obolus Café’s number on the other. He dialed it and waited for the pick up, though by the second ring he was swallowing hard and tensing his jaw.  
Two agonizing rings later someone picked up. “Obolus Café on New Hampshire street, best local coffee and tea around, how can I help you?” Meg said.  
“Yo, psycho- bi—uuuhhh, Meg!”

“Robocop?”

“Yeah, yeah, put Cas on the phone.”

She hung up.

He called back.

“Obolus Café on New—“

“Put Cas on the line dammit.”

“Oh, after last night’s resounding conclusion? I don’t think so.” Dial tone.

Great. Dean ran back out the door, worried his commitment to do this was going to run out on him if he didn’t act on it soon. But while flipping through radio stations a familiar tune came on, Eyes on the Prize, and then he didn’t worry. He parked across the street from the Obolus and walked inside. Castiel was back behind the front counter, and Charlie was hunched over her computer screen with her ear-phones on, but most other customers had cleared out. Good. Dean got nervous around big audiences.

He marched up to the front counter and pulled out the Café’s card. “Yo, I’m back.”  
Castiel nodded once, and still Dean could see the restraint behind his eyes. He held up the card. “So can I cash this in?”  
“Yes,” Castiel said. “Though you still have the cup of tea sitting on the table from before you left.”  
Whoops. Way to make him feel appreciated. Dean blinked once and pressed his lips together. The sun caught Cas’s eyes, making him squint out the window, his mouth slightly hanging open, and oh how did Dean want the bottom lip.

“Actually,” Dean cleared his throat as his voice decided to momentarily throw itself into his pre-pubescent range. “Actually, I’m gonna cash it in for something else. A date. Tonight…” He paused as Castiel’s wide stare was now fixed on Dean. “…with you.”  
Several beats passed before Castiel finally stuttered, “S-sure-- Sure!”

Dean let himself smile. Not all the way, toothy and awesome, but it was still a smile he hadn’t really felt for ages. “So uh… When’s closing time?”  
“Seven on Sundays,” Cas replied with a child-like smile of his own.

“Seven sounds good,” Dean nodded. He looked down at the card he put on the counter and knocked it with his knuckles. “I’ll swing by around then.”  
Dean walked over to Charlie’s table and grabbed the cup Cas put out for him earlier. Charlie started, but then waved and grinned as he turned to walk back out the door. Exactly how he was going to kill seven hours? He had no idea. But hell of that mattered. A middle aged man and woman near the front door stared at him in disgust as he walked by… they were close enough to the front door for them to have probably hear his conversation with Cas. With bloom of impish pride he said, “What are you looking at?”

Dean walked out into the freezing, sunny afternoon and took a sip of his drink. Dragon pearls. It was cold but who cared? He sipped it while walking back to the Impala, and when he slammed the door he looked back at the front windows of the café just in time to see Castiel throw a giant air punch of awesome.


	8. Chapter 8

Dean debated for six hours the ramifications of jerking off prior to this date with Castiel. If he did, then he might be more relaxed during the date, less likely to do something carnal and stupid. But what if the date wound up defining itself on being carnal and stupid? If he jacked off ahead of time then he might not have all the ‘juice’ he wanted for such an encounter.

This conversation bounced back and forth inside his skull, occasionally adding on new arguments and counter arguments, until he couldn’t take it anymore. At quarter-past six, Dean found himself panting, smiling, wet, and clean on the bottom of his shower, his mind floating on the hot water and steam. Every few moments his brain tried to serve him that chaser of guilt, but fantasy Cas would push it away before straddling Dean’s hips… and this was the reason Dean was so often stuck on WANT.

“Bi,” Dean whispered. It still sounded strange in his mouth. Was that the right label to use? Was there another that was more appropriate? “Bi,” He said again. Yup, still weird.

Dean eventually pulled himself out of his shower, dried off, and got ready for the - oh shit. Date. This was happening. When was the last time Dean had gone out on a date? He grimaced at his mirror reflection; three years at least. Granted, that was excluding the handful of awkward hook-ups with the occasional interested, female-bodied person, but this was a male-bodied, not hook-up situation.

“The fuck am I doing?” He hissed at his reflection. What would he even do on a date with Cas? Go to a bar, get drunk watching the Jayhawks kill the Tigers, and then tap that ass? Something told him that was a very stupid idea. But that was what his brain had concocted a few hours earlier when he asked him out… well, that plus the shower scene.

6:30. Maybe a gay bar? Were there any gay bars in Lawrence? Dean pictured walking into a loud, strobe light lit hole in the wall where feather boas flounced about like dancing alcoholics and… yeah, no. Baby steps on this sexuality thing.

At 6:45 Dean downed a scalding swig of whiskey and headed for the Impala. He’d just have to figure this out as he went. Maybe he’d think of something on the way?  
Dean pulled up to the Obolus Café assured that that presumption was also a very stupid. He walked up to the front door with increasing torpor, muttering, “Just some idea of what I’m doin, c’mon brain, gimme somethin’…,”

He was at the door. Castiel was reaching across a table for a napkin and… he had a noticeable ass. Was it plump and perky and perfect? Nope. Did it need to be? Nope. It was nice and round and made Dean’s head turn slightly to the right as a dazed grin tugged at the corner of his lips and this was oh so very yes. One JO session clearly hadn’t been enough.

Castiel turned around but Dean’s eyes didn’t move from Cas’s hips until he realized the barista was staring at him. Dean called upon his innocent smile to get him out of this. Castiel came to the door, unlocked it, and opened it. He opened his mouth to speak, but his jaw only hung limply for a few moments before he stepped out of the way, welcoming Dean in.

“Yeah, thanks,” Dean said, which was followed by ‘Yeah, thanks?! The fuck was that!?’

“So…,” Cas said in his unusual, gravel voice. “How do you… What did you have in mind for this… date?”

“Oh, eh,” Shit shit shit,“I just, uh, I thought, you know, maybe a bar? And then a movie or somethin’ but it’s Sunday so nothing’s open, shit, so maybe...”

Dean chanced a look at Castiel. His head was only slightly tilted curiously. “I’m not sure what you just suggested.”

Dean pressed his lips together as he took a deep breath, held it, and said, “Me neither.”

“Dean, I should let you know something. I’m sorry I didn’t mention it before, but… your invitation for a date… surprised me. I can’t leave the building,” Castiel said.

Dean blinked. “You can’t leave?”

“That’s correct,” Castiel said.

“Is this like a ‘I’d violate contract,’ kind of thing or a ‘magical soul things won’t let me” kind of thing?”

“The magical option, though the first one is close.” Castiel replied. “If you’d prefer to cancel this, I understand.”

“…You really can’t leave?”

“Yes,” Castiel said.

“Hunh… so what’d happen if I picked you up and ran out the front door?”

Castiel grinned slightly. “You’d fall through the door and I’d stay in the building. Though I suspect I’d bleed profusely.”

“Whoaookay, yeah, let’s not do that then,” Dean said.

“I’d appreciate it.”

“But hey, that’s alright, we can uhh… We can do stuff here.”

“Not really,” Castiel said wit ha wary edge. “Unless you enjoy making caffeinated drinks and talking to the dead.”

“Ah,” Dean said. “Got TV?”

“No… nor do I have a computer. I apologize Dean, I should have-“

“Hold on… ,” Dean said, holding one finger up to stop the conversation. “I’m about to be a fuckin’ genius. Just... don’t go anywhere.”  
As he ran out the café and threw himself back into the Impala he heard Cas yell, “Because I could if I wanted to!”

Dean returned twenty minutes later, slightly out of breath and carrying a backpack. “You’re gonna learn that Han shot first.”

“I - - what?”

Dean pushed past Cas and into the darkened café. He had to admit, this was pretty brilliant. Cas had never seen the best movies of all time? Dean could show them to him. Once Dean found a plug for his computer charger he pulled his lap-top and set it on a wobbly table.

“…You brought your computer…,” Castiel said.

“And I’m gonna use it to expose you to awesome,” Dean replied. He pulled up Star Wars, Episode IV on his computer, turned it around to show Cas, and hit the play button. Castiel eyed him suspiciously for a moment before jumping at the movie’s intro music.

“Star Wars…,” Castiel said, peering at the computer screen. He ambled forward while squinting at the screen, his mouth moving slightly in time with the words he was reading. “This is the movie you mentioned the other day.”

“Yup, good ol’ Lucas digital awesome,” Dean said. He waited a few moments for Castiel to say something, but the barista was already deeply engrossed in reading the scrolling introduction, and then he was lost to the opening battle. Dean sat back in his chair, leaned it against the wall, and kicked up his feet.

He could see Cas’s wings in the low light of the café. Screw the movie, Dean wanted those wings. His left hand twitched where he held it, crossed over his chest, but that was as far as it traveled. A douche would reach out and try to start something after being only slightly horned up. But nope, Dean wasn’t going to do that. Granted… his hook-up history left him wondering whether his idea of a douche was the only he could be one… It certainly hadn’t seemed that way to Cassie.

Shit now he was thinking about Cassie. Right as Princess Leia appeared on screen. The Gods truly enjoyed torturing him… and a moment after that thought passed through Dean’s mind it occurred to him that was actually a possibility. His hand found his face.

There was once a time where Dean got off on the idea of being a knight in shining armor, be it in video games or movie fantasies or fighting off the bullies that went after his brother. But Cassie was attracted to him while not being impressed by his gravitas. She wouldn’t stand for physical or emotional bull-shit from anyone. Like Ms. Moseley, come to think of it. Or Mrs. Winchester.

Dean sighed as more bad memories clattered down onto his brain. What the hell was he thinking asking Cas out on a date? This was way too soon. He had no idea what he was doing, he didn’t even know… if this date went in the direction of his hook-ups or those humid nights in Cassie’s dorm room… he didn’t know if he could go through with it.  
Besides, who’d want to be with knight who failed at his only job, left sobbing in the mud without a white horse?

Luke was racing back to the water farm on Tatooine. Dean knew this part of the movie. It was when he finds out his parents are dead - - well, his aunt and uncle, but close enough. Dammit. If it wasn’t that night where Dean killed Cassie it was when he was racing to that hospital in Kansas City. His momma had asked for him, and he had to get there. He got the speeding ticket. He got to her room late. It was empty save a bouquet of roses fixed to the inside of her door. They’d never been watered. His mother’s last waking moments, waiting for her baby to get there, were spent staring at a bunch of dead flowers. 

A phaser beam shot knocked Dean out of the memory. 

“Ah…Han Solo shot first…,” Castiel said, still staring at the computer. “I understand now.”

“Yeah, he’s… not one for finesse.”

Dean zoned in and out of the movie several times, alternatively thinking about the notebook, the roses, or that knight. He came to during the final scene, as Princess Leia gives medals to Luke and Han. Castiel leaned back in his chair and frowned, using his fingers to tighten his lips. As the credits began rolling he spoke.

“That was an interesting film… but I do not like the sexism. A princess in that setting would likely be trained with greater knowledge of combat and strategy then what Leia demonstrated. She’s effectively the princess in a Middle-Ages European story interpreted by a Victorian, white male: something to be placed upon a pedestal because of her class position and beauty. She is the medal in the in the overall story, which is unfair. Would a princess whose home was brought to apocalypse pass her agency off to a man with cavalier pretentions? I seriously doubt it. That was very unrealistic.”

“…That was the unrealistic part you’re upset about?”  
Castiel shrugged. Dean shook his head slightly. “Jesus everything’s all Cassie tonight.”

Castiel turned to him. “Who is Cassie?”

“Oh, uh… old girlfriend,” Dean replied. Talking about exes was awkward enough to begin with, but apparently even more so when they were a different gender than your present date. And, well, dead.

Castiel looked at the computer screen a moment, then back to Dean curiously.

“No, just… that’s something Cassie would have said… you’re little feminist critique of the coolest movie ever.”

Castiel nodded, turning back to the computer. “Were you close? You and Cassie?”

“Man, I’m don’t gonna talk about that.”

“…Then you were. Well, that’s a good thing.”

“Why?”

“If you cared greatly for this woman, and you see something similar between her and I… then perhaps this date isn’t a fluke,” Castiel said.

What are you talking about?”

“…I believed you were heterosexual, and then… you weren’t. That was very surprising, Dean. I couldn’t help wondering if you proposed it because of… guilt, or… something else beyond my comprehension.”

“No, dude, really, I like you,” and THAT just came out of his mouth.

“…I sense that was not the end of your thought,” Castiel said.

“What, do you want me to give you a running monogluge of everything that’s running through my head?”

“…Did your former girlfriend ever tell you that you struggle with emotional vulnerability?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Exactly what I said. You don’t seem to be open to what you sense or feel… and that means you don’t communicate terribly well, at least with words.”

“Jesus dude, how do you do that? Just bore into people, can’t you ever just let it rest?”

“…Not really,” Castiel said with a wince Dean missed.

“Well just leave it, aright? Watch the movie.”

“The movie is over.”

“Then watch the next one.”

Castiel sighed. “Why do I feel like we’re having a repeat of the yelling match last night?”

Dean rolled his eyes. “I’m just thinking about things.”

“For example?”

“You know the basics, and believe me you don’t want to know any-more than that.”

“… I do know the basics, but if I didn’t want to know more would I have asked? You know I’m not just some random person with a dangerous excess of curiosity or someone who says they want to know what’s going on in your head when really they want to know how to get into your pants.”

“How’d that get into the conver—you know what? Forget. Just watch the next Star Wars movie.”

“You’re avoiding the topic. Besides, there can't be another—“

Dean pulled out the Episode V DVD.

Cas’s mouth closed, glancing between Dean and the DVD. “I… I don’t want you to avoid emotional discourse… but I also want to know if Leia is allowed to personify bad-assness.”

Dean smirked. “Still think I’m a terrible liar?”

“Not necessarily. Please, the film.”

Dean reached forward and shoved the disc into his computer, part glad that he was getting off the topic of emotional vulnerability and back to the awesome. 

Cas put his hand on Dean’s shoulder. “I’m not going to drop the topic though. Something is bothering you that wasn’t bothering you this morning or when you arrived this evening, and I’m not okay letting you suffer in secrecy.”

That final part of his sentence caught Dean off guard. After a momentary stare he shook off the thoughts of his mother and the roses to say, “Sure thing Freud.”

Castiel glared at him. “This isn’t a matter of Freudian interpretations of psychoanaly—HOLY!…  
Dean’s stared at Castiel wide-eyed for a moment before a grin crept over his face.

“The starting theme is loud and disconcerting,” Castiel said quietly. “…Don’t look at me like that.”

“Free country,” Dean found himself saying. He took off his jacket and leaned back as he had before while Castiel leaned forward to watch Episode V’s icy opening. He didn’t want to say it, let alone think it, but… Cas was kinda cute. Hot, yes. Engaging, yes. And now kinda cute. Dean much preferred where his mind was going now compared to where it was. He mentally tugged at the cords tying Cas’s apron around his hips, then pulling off that button down one button at a time, then tasting that skin that perpetually smelled of spiced baking… 

“Is the reason you didn’t want to say what was on your mind because that’s what’s giving you a massive erection?” Castiel said coldly.

“Bwuh, wha, I, I don’t-!”

“Peripheral vision, Dean,” Castiel said. “And denim doesn't lend itself well to quiet rubbing.”  
Rock of Ultimate Awkwardness. Dean Winchester. Hard Place.

“That’s what all this is about, isn’t it?” Castiel sighed.

“What what’s all about?”

Castiel hung his head for a moment as the battle on the ice planet Hoth getting underway. “You asked me out on this date so you could have sex, then, ideally, leave.”

“…Are you fucking serious?”

“You wouldn’t be the first to try to ‘nail a Mormon’ or to want boasting stories about ‘screwing the coffee shop worker,’ or even just wanting to sexually experiment on the si—“

“Well I’m not like those guys, alright?” Dean shot back.

“…Not all of them were men,” Castiel mumbled.

“Well I’m not like those chicks either!” Dean said. “Really man, you’re way off the ball on this one.”

They returned to the movie. Dean watched Han running through the maze of collapsing snow bunker. Solo was a cool character, especially when he became less of an ass later in the movies, but right now he looked like a bumbling idiot, like that knight crying in the mud. Dean rolled his eyes.

Was it really so awful if that fallen knight had taken any kind of comfort and connection that’d been offered him, even if it was mainly physical? It was what it was, but it wasn’t like Dean only ever looked for physical gratification. He was a knight, dammit, horse or not.

What was it that Cassie said about women and pedestals that one time in their entry seminar class, the one they’d met in? She said… men like to think they’re doing women a favor by idealizing them, putting them up on a pedestal, but once they’re there it’s a mighty long way to fall. Was the distance from that pedestal to the ground the same as from a white horse?

“Why the hell’d you think I’d be like that?” Dean blurted out. “I mean, sex is awesome, but it’s not worth being a douche to get it.”  
Castiel looked away from the screen, where the rebel leaders were discussing evacuation ideas, to the storage room doorway.

“Seriously man, what gives?... Now who’s avoiding the topic?”

“I thought you understood. Sex is something that’s only supposed to take place within the sanctity of marriage, or as close to marriage as someone can reach,” Castiel whispered. “Or that’s what I think it’s supposed to be… I’m afraid I’ve ruined this date.”

The words “Yeah you have” caught behind Dean’s teeth. Instead of saying them he swallowed and said, “What if this wasn’t a date? What if this was just us… you know, doing the thing over the counter?”

“Doing what thing?”

Dean stood up and walked to the counter, gesturing for Cas to follow. Dean jumped over the divider and walked up behind the register, watching Castiel walking up warily. “I don’t understand what you’re doing,” The barista said.

“Just follow my lead,” Dean replied. He cleared his throat and said, “Yo, welcome to the Obolus freak zone, home to psychopomp-crazy-bitches and back doors to the underworld. What can I get ya?”

Castiel continued to stare warily.

Dean rolled his eyes. “This doesn’t work if you don’t play along.”

Castiel stared at the ground for a moment before saying, “Maybe…a green tea.”

“On it,” Dean said, though he held on to the side of the upper counter for a second. “You sure you just want Green Tea? I got something way better than that if you think you can take it.”

Castiel shrugged. “I guess.”

Dean nodded before tearing through the strange bottles that lined the hidden racks of the front counter. Cas once mentioned that they stocked alcohol. Dean was gonna find it, dammit. “Something got ya man? You look like a 500 pound hooker just finished an hour of farting in your face.”  
It took a few moments for Castiel to reply. “You have a very strange sense of humor.”

“Maybe everyone else’s strange for not getting it,” Dean said while squatting on the floor. “Sweet Jesus, y’all got the good stuff.”

“What did you say?”

“Nothin’.”

Dean jumped up, holding a bottle of George T. Stagg Whiskey. Now, cups. “So let’s talk. What’s eatin’ ya?”

Again, there was hesitation, but as Dean located the cupboards that held seemingly endless amounts of rolling trays, filled with mugs, cups, classes, bowls, flagons, and tea pots, Castiel said, “I… I think a guy that… I enjoy the company of doesn’t reciprocate… He asked me out on a date, but it was strange… I can’t figure out if I’m just another sexual conquest or curiosity to him or not.”

Dean pulled the top off of the whiskey and took a sip before pulling two glasses out of the trays of endless cups, hoping he never had to hear Cas say something like that ever again. “What makes ya think he’s like that?”

“…Most men are, I’ve found,” Cas said. “And… he seems very easily aroused, and he’s from a culture that… I’ve long been taught is full of sinners.”

“So… you think he’s a rapist or something?”

“What!? No, not at all!” Castiel said. “He’s a kind soul, if a brash one… I don’t think I really know what’s bothering me. I’m… uncomfortable with how easily he seems to be able to act sexually.”

“’Cause that’s a sin thing?” Dean asked.

“Perhaps… but… maybe it’s because I’m not so comfortable acting… sexually. And… it is strange to think of him as also being homosexual… sometimes I wish I could take the sex out of sexuality.”

“You sure he’s gay?” Dean replied, eyeing the whiskey as he poured it into the two glasses. “Maybe’s he’s not, you know? Like some guys like guys and some girls like girls, but some like both, right? Maybe he’s like that.”

Dean waited a few thunderous heartbeats before hearing, “That would make sense.”

“And hey, you’re a guy, you know how easy guys get turned on, like… a lot of times you don’t even think about it, it just happens. It’s not like you start screwing anything that moves though. Some guys do, and they’re a bunch of selfish ass-holes, so…,” Dean was back in front of the front counter, holding the two glasses. He passed one across the way to Castiel, who took it slowly, carrying 500 pounds of guilt on his face.

“So…maybe you did something that turned him on, and that’s all there was to it.”

“…I misjudged you, Dean, I’m sorr-”

“Ah - hey, you’re breaking character.”

Castiel whispered a smile. “Perhaps you’re right.”

“You bet your sweet ass I’m right.”

Castiel let his smile all the way through. “I think I prefer these discussions to dates. There is less pressure.”

“Dude. Character; stay in it.”

Castiel nodded slightly, pushing down his smile as his voice picked up out of the gravel and into the air. “So what did you find in the place of Green Tea?”

“The best thing made east of the Mississippi,” Dean replied.

Castiel brought the glass up to his nose then dipped his head back. “This doesn’t smell like tea.”

Dean kicked back a good chunk of his drink, hissed, and smiled. “Nope, this is liquid gold.”

“Or paint thinner,” Castiel said. He took a breath before swallowing as much of the drink as Dean had, only to bulge his eyes a moment later, swallow, and cough horribly. 

“How… gracious, how did you do that?”

“Ehh, get used to it with practice,” Dean said with a smile. 

“I hope so,” Castiel said, taking another deep breath. “I really am sorry for jumping to conclusions about you Dean.”

“Y’get used to me with practice,” He replied.

“…Shall we?” Castiel asked, pointing back to the computer. Dean gave a lop-sided nod and jumped back over the divider, bringing his drink with him. “Would you mind that this remains less of a date and more of a…?”

“A hang out?” Dean offered. 

“Yes,” Castiel said, sitting down in his chair and looking at the screen. “Why are Leia and Han flirting with each other in a cave?”

“Ah, one sec,” Dean said, setting his drink down on the table before reaching forward to rewind the video via track-pad. “And I’m cool with it, as long as you’re cool with sometimes giving me a hard-on.”

He liked that that made Cas smile. “That is a two way street, Dean.”

Dean’s eyes shot from watching was his fingers were doing to Castiel’s blues. He raised one eyebrow slowly.

“…There have been times that I was happy I was standing in front of the counter. Khakis tend to leave little to the imagination.”  
Dean stared, swallowed, and moved to reply until his hand slipped and the Star Wars opening theme blasted out of the computer’s speakers, sending both men cursing and falling backwards out of their chairs.


	9. Chapter 9

Simple Pleasures ~ Chapter 9  
** Trigger warning, car crash stuff **

Dean learned three things about Missouri Moseley on her cloudy, cold, Wednesday afternoon funeral. Firstly, she never had any children, nor did her siblings. Second, she despised her father in spite of him being a civil rights leader. And lastly, she left Dean her personal cookbook, the one she always batted Sam and Dean away from with a spatula covered with bits of frying okra whenever they tried to sneak a peak at its pages for their mother’s culinary queries. 

He wasn’t expecting to be asked for pallbearer service, but he answered the request by shouldering one corner of her pinewood casket and walking out the doors of that small, Methodist church towards the frigid graveyard. She would be buried in the same cheap wood as his mother.

Why do the best people always wind up with the worst funerals? Something quiet inside him asked.  
Neither one of them, Missouri or his mom, should have had to die, by cancer or diabetes or whatever. At least… not like this. They deserved a freaking pillar of marble and a parade for the secrets they held, for the love they dished out sweetly and tough, and for the backbone they gave him.

Eyes on the Prize blared behind him in the church as Dean lowered Ms. Moseley’s coffin into her plot. Eyes on the prize? What fucking prize was there in all this?

A heavy hand landed on Dean’s shoulder. He whirled to find Bobby starting himself. “Hell, it’s only me, kid.”

Dean nodded once before turning back to watch a flow of dirt put Missouri six feet under. After a few minutes Dean stepped backwards into the crowd, ignoring the preacher’s words to whisper at Bobby, “This is weird man, watching her go down twice.”

Bobby sighed to say the world was weird.

The service ended with dust to dust. Bobby and Dean stepped a few paces away from the fresh grave where Missouri’s sisters were crying. “How ya holdin’ up?” Bobby asked.

“Fine,” Dean lied. “Fine, man. Just… went through all this once, y’know?”

“Yeah, guess so,” Bobby said. The old man stuffed his hands into his jacket and hissed at the cold, shooting a stream of steam into the wind. Puffy snowbirds pecked around their ankles, searching for seed among the brittle prairie grass.

“That coffee place, the obolus,” Bobby started, but he stopped. A few moments later Dean glanced at the old man, who was squinting at Ms. Moseley’s sisters. Finally he shrugged and said, “There was a death there about six months ago. This kid, Jamal Henry, was missing from a track meet in Athens, Georgia; he showed up on the building’s roof with not an organ in him. Boy was just skin and bones. Police named the case cold the day before the new tenants opened.”

“What?... Wait, are you sayin’ Cas picked up some teenager a thousands miles away and killed him in the—“

“Whoa, hold your horses boy, I ain’t saying anything like that,” Bobby said. “But… hell, Dean, if what you’ve been seeing’s all true and if I haven’t gone down the mother of all rabbit holes then I gotta say that somethin’ bad’s going on there. It’s got one hell of an arrangement with people dyin’, plus wacko weird stuff in general.”

“We don’t know who did it,” a sharp voice said from behind them. Bobby and Dean spun around to see the young Vietnamese man Dean saw riding with Ms. Moseley standing before them, wearing a black suit too big for his shoulders.

“Jesus Mary Jo- - would it kill you things to warn a guy before you, you, pop out of hoodoo dimension?” Dean growled.

The young man watched them both for a moment before saying. “I just walked up to you...”

“Balls,” Bobby wheezed. “Who the hell are you?”

“I’m Kevin Tra-… I’m Kevin,” he said. “I’m the psychopomp assigned to Missouri Moseley.”

“Yeah you little prick, I saw you that night, now what the hell are you doing here?”

Kevin glanced at them both again. “Part of my job is making sure nothing takes the body of the deceased until it’s been properly laid to rest… but that murder you were talking about, we don’t know who did it. That’s part of the reason why we’re here – our boss is trying to uncover the murderer.”

“Your boss?” Dean asked.

“Charon,” Bobby said. Dean blinked. “…What, you saying you haven’t even Google-searched things since you got caught up in all this mess? That’s Greek mythology 101, boy, come on!”

“I’m sorry, I’ve been a little busy picking guts off the road and welding cracked axles!”

“You had a whole weekend off, Dean, you could have-“

“Actually he was busy then, too,” Kevin said. “From what I‘ve heard he had date with a unicorn.”

The two men stared at Kevin with wildly different confused faces. Kevin shrugged meekly and said, “That’s how Meg described it, anyway…”

“I… whatever the hell that means,” Bobby sighed. “Why’d y’all set up a whole fake café just to figure out why some poor kid got turned into a piñata?”

Kevin blinked, smiled, then frowned and shook his head in a shiver. “Well, uh, for one the shop’s not a front, it’s part of something else, and secondly… I don’t think I can tell you anything else.”

“You don’t think you can?” Dean asked.

Kevin sighed. “Look, I’m still kind of new to all this, okay? My tongue pulls back whenever I’m about to say something I’m ‘not supposed to say’, and if I go on and try to say it I start bleeding all over the place.”

Just like Castiel. Dean frowned. “…So…how’d you become a psychopomp.”

Kevin opened his mouth and made a gagging sound. He pressed his lips together, eventually saying, “It’s something that happens when you’re between death and life. You… ggghuetth okay… that’s all I can say then.”

“Were you, uh… were you an ‘intern’ before it happened?” Dean asked amidst Bobby’s curious frown.

Kevin again opened his mouth, but this time he didn’t close it because of a gag. “I know what you’re really asking,” he said. “No, he’s not slotted to be ghede.”

Dean backed and twisted his head in confusion.

“Ghede, psychopomp, angel, guiding spirit—“

“Got it,” Dean replied. As his next question spelled itself out in his head Dean’s phone started vibrating in his pocket. He groaned and opened it. “Whaddya want?”

“Heeey, Dean, buddy, it’s Zachariah from AAA—“

“Aw fuck,” Dean said. “Just tell me where I gotta go you white collared creep.”  
“Always so quick to anger, Mr. Wincehster? It’s really not—“

“Oh, guess what, I don’t fucking care what you have to say unless it’s an address!”

Zachariah started blathering about some woman that sideswiped and flipped, but Kevin tapped Dean’s shoulder. The young man was holding open a beat up flip-phone which held a text message: MASSACHUSSETTS ST. AND E. 23RD ST.

No mystery how this tow trip was going to end. Dean tossed the keys to his baby over to Bobby, who exchanged them for the keys to Levi, then pushed his phone into his pocket, Zachariah still gabbing away, and started up the hill towards the church parking lot.  
“Hey, can you give me a lift? My bike’s almost out of gas.” Kevin called after him.  
“And be there when you punch someone’s lights out? I don’t think so,” Dean shot back. Eyes on the Prize was still playing. He decided the song sucked balls. In the bad way.

Two and a half days passed, featuring oily rags and a few people who weren’t going to pay for a “robbery’s” worth of auto-repairs. Dean finished pulling one of those people’s cars into the Yard Saturday night, basking in the driver’s haughty embarrassment. He dropped off both before jumping in the Impala and heading back to the Locust street shop. He watched the clock on his dash, barely putting his foot on the gas pedal.

Eleven twenty-five. He pulled off Massachusetts to get to New Hampshire. 

Eleven twenty eight. Still on New Hampshire. Oh no, what would happen if he weren’t back at the shop by closing? The shop that he made sure to power down and lock before picking up that pink-polo wearing prick?

Eleven thirty. Well gosh darn, his shift was over and he just so happened to be in front of this Café. That had a dead kid on the roof six months ago. Right. Dean’s memory, man… such a fucking downer.

A cup of dragon pearl tea Thursday night gave Castiel the duty of figuring out what to do during tonight’s “hang out”. Dean sucked at the air, preparing for a night of hunting an infestation of flying rattle-snakes, or just chilling, both things outside his concept of reality. He stepped inside the front room, quiet and dark save a string of small lanterns hanging against the back wall, until a bang echoed out from the storage room, followed by a scream and the shriek of a fire alarm.

“Cas?” Dean yelled as he ran for the counter, jumped over, through the doorway to the back room and then into the kitchen, where smoke rolled out along the ceiling. He found Charlie standing on stool in the middle of the room, waving a cookie sheet at the fire alarm, while Castiel threw open a window and chucked out a smoldering cannon ball.

“Hi Dean!” Charlie yelled between her fanning. “You mother-fucking piece of plastic I will feed you to the digital undead if you don’t shut up!”

The fire alarm stopped.

Charlie smiled. “Violence is always the answer.”

After a moment to swallow his lungs, Dean found himself giving Charlie his get the fuck out glare. This wasn’t a date, not officially, so perhaps Cas didn’t understand that this was supposed to be a one-on-one kinda thing, but still. “What’d I walk in on?... Wait, is that… are y’all baking?”

“More like perfecting the method of making charcoal,” Charlie replied. Castiel shut the window and closed the oven door. He looked at Dean with eyes worn of patience, flour slashed across his face.

“I believe this oven is the work of the devil,” Castiel grumbled.

“Or heaven,” Charlie said, turning to him. “It has two settings: Sodom and Gomorrah.”

“So…your plan for tonight was… baking?” Dean asked, still glowering.

Charlie glanced between the two men, still standing on the stool. “I’m missing something.”

“No, nothing…,” Castiel replied. “I was hoping that… well…Dean might arrive here after we had yielded something aside from a burned carcass of gluten and sliced apples.”

Dean glanced at the contents lining the cramped kitchen’s counter. Apples, eggs, flour, butter, sugar, a hand-full of spices, and several badly burned pie tins. Charlie’s computer was open, bearing a recipe for apple pie. That Cas was trying to cook for him. 

Dean almost d’awwed. Almost. His mouth made moved to position but his voice was still pissed and not cooperating.

“Hold on,” Charlie said. She pointed at Cas. “You wanted me to help you make pie, and you,” she pointed to Dean. A smile rose to her face. “Was this a second date?”

“It’s not a date!” Dean said.

“Why’re you all defensive, I was there when you asked him out last wee-“

“This is a ‘hang-out’,” Castiel offered. “Not a date.”

“Oh,” Charlie said. She made fists and bounced them against her hips and looked down at her shoes. “Whoa… how do tall people stand being this far away from the ground?”

“On our feet,” Dean said, offering her a hand getting down.

“Very funny.”

“Yes I am,” Dean said.

Charlie kicked his hand and climbed down herself. Once on the ground she said, “So… should I… go?”

Dean opened his mouth to say yes but he heard Cas’s voice say, “No, that won’t be necessary. We still need your computer to figure out how to properly make this recipe.”

Dean glared over his shoulder at Castiel, who shrugged and admitted, “We do.”

“Be back in a minute,” Dean sighed, walking out of the kitchen. He poked his head into the Impala’s back seat and pulled out Ms. Moseley’s thick, red cookbook, turning and walking back to the Café. He opened the door with his left hand, the book in his right, the same that held Missouri’s hand a week ago… walking this same path. Dean slowed as that song started ringing in his ears. At the counter divider he looked into the darkened storage room at the locked cellar doors, glimmering in the cracks of light sliding through the bottom of the kitchen door. He switched the book in his hands, jumped over the counter, and swept into the kitchen.

Charlie was bent over her computer as Castiel whispered something to her, scrubbing at one of the massacred pie tins. He turned to Dean, then to the book. Dean held it up and, with a slightly forced smile, declared, “I’ve got the friggin’ baking bible.”

“Ooh, sweet!” Charlie yelled, running over and grabbing for it. Dean held it above his head, prompting her to glare at him and reach behind her for the stool.

“That won’t help you reach it,” Dean said.

“Who said I’m trying to reach it?” she asked. “Violence is always the answer.”

“Try backing that up with-hey!” Dean yelled as Castiel walked back to the kitchen counter, carrying the book in his hands. He opened it and flipped through a few pages with a gentle grin before his face turned dark. His head jerked up to look at Dean, then down at the book. He took a large breath and said, “I believe this will be a good source to cook from.”

Charlie stared at the boys for a moment before saying, “Well come on, bitches, we can’t smite another pie with heavenly glory by standing around gazing deeply into each other’s eyes.”

Dean chomped his lips together for a moment, watching Castiel and Charlie start assembling ingredients for their baking endeavor. The book kind of meant that Charlie and her computer didn’t have to be there… wasn’t that obvious? His arms crossed over his chest, then his hands fell onto his hips, but he slowly scooted closer to the book, wondering what secrets Missouri had withheld from him and his brother.

He felt the weight of that manila letter in his hands again, just thinking about Sam, the piece of mail that sealed his—

No, not tonight, Dean’s thoughts hissed. He didn’t want to get caught in remembering things all the time. What was he doing now? Right, being pissed. At what? The Charlie thing. Right.

Cas was interpreting Ms. Moseley’s scrawling cursive script as Charlie stepped over to her computer and turned on music. She was cute, he had to admit. Wait, she’s lesbian. Can’t touch. Damn. 

“No day passes that something doesn’t gnaw on you,” Castiel whispered, keeping his gaze on the cookbook. “What’s troubling you?”

“…Your psychic shrink thing is really hard to get used to, you know that?”

“We’ve known each other for only a few weeks,” Castiel replied, this time glancing at Dean. “I believe getting used to someone takes longer than that.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Fine, yeah, I’m peeved, like that’s new.”

“…about the book?” Castiel asked. For a moment Dean’s eyes glanced between Charlie’s hips as she bent over the computer and then at Castiel’s as he bent over the book and his hips popped back and brain holy shit FOCUS.

“Nah, just… nah. So what’s it say in there about pie?”

After a dubious look Castiel said, “It seems to be saying the same thing as our internet recipe, just in greater detail. For example, the butter must be finger-pressed into the flour after being chilled to near freezing, and ice water must be used when making the pastry. The… author recommends making it in two periods so as to let the butter and water already mixed in to chill and rest before adding the rest… Hm… she also recommends a pinch of ground cardamom and allspice into the flour itself.”

“Duuude, you gotta be kiddin’ me!” Dean said, jumping over and looking over Cas’s shoulder at the recipe. “That was her thing all this time!?”

“I’m not sure what you mean by thing,” Cas said, pointing to a line of scribble. “But see here? It says to use those spices as they disperse easy, preserve well when mixed with cold water and sugar, and are relatively resistant to charring.”

“…All I see is chicken scratch.”

“Tilt your head to the right and you can make out cardamom,” Castiel said. They studied the page, whispering the words beneath their breath, tilting their heads in union upon the word cardamom. “And there, she… I believe that is a mathematical equation for the right temperature to bake with. This woman was fastidious.”

“Damn, no wonder her cooking was freakin’ perfect,” Dean muttered.

“What are you guys looking at?” Charlie asked, poking her head around Castiel’s. Dean was tempted to give her his glare again, but let it go, instead saying:

“I got no idea but it tastes good.”

Charlie peered closer at the page until her eyes popped wide. “Whoa… whoever wrote this went all out. That’s a variation of the general convection-diffusion equation… they did something weird with the gradient though, see? It’s related to the diffusibility as well as R, and there’s a new variable over there that I… why are you two staring at me?”

“Geek,” Dean cracked a smile.

“Zip it, horde guy,” she quipped.

“Hey, I’m not horde!”

“If you took quests from them then technically you have an associational relation with—“

“That’s bull-shit, I was just taking the quests I that were cool and—“

“Dean, Charlie, focus, please!” Castiel shouted. “We have more pressing matters at hand than establishing identity categorization from a video game! We have to bake a pie!”

It was quiet for a moment before Dean muttered, “We don’t have to-“

“I want to bake a pie!” Castiel said, throwing a scalding look at Dean.

Dean backed away slightly. “…Okay…”

Castiel didn’t turn his face away from him, still hitting him with all the fire Dean had ever felt from another man’s stare. Part of it was angry of course, but something else in it seemed desperate. “Charlie,” Castiel said. “Please translate the temperature equation.”

Castiel took over the rest of the crust making process, leaving Charlie and Dean to slice up the last of the apples in a large bag marked ‘Mercury’s – Delivered So Fast So Your Groceries Will Last!’

“Okay,” Charlie said, wiping her hands on a towel as Dean carried a bowl of spiced apples over to the waiting pie tin. “Fifth time’s the charm, right?”

Castiel said nothing, instead scooping the apple mix out of Dean’s arms and into the tin with a rubber spatula. Dean and Charlie looked at each other worriedly as Castiel wove a lattice on top of the pie using his prepared dough, muttering to himself, Highway to Hell roaring out of Charlie’s computer. He carefully brushed on the egg wash and a final spread of sugar and cinnamon on top.

“And this time,” Castiel hissed, shoving the pie into the precisely heated oven. “You will cook properly.”

He turned on the backlight of the oven, set the timer for fifteen minutes, and sat down in front of the oven door, staring intently at the pie illuminated within.

“Cas,” Charlie said. “The second pie shot out of the oven like a canon. I don’t think sitting so close is a good idea…”

“No, this will work fine,” Castiel said with a hint of airy craze. “It can’t catch fire or bloat up or blacken or explode or melt if I watch it and pull it out. Hand me the oven mitt please.”

Dean passed it over as Charlie started picking up dirty prep materials. “I’m just saying I’m pretty sure that’s going to blow up in your face. Literally. We’ve made these things just like that other recipe said repeatedly and it just, you know, won’t work with pyro oven.”

“It will work this time,” Castiel replied. “We simply missed some important details in the previous recipe or weren’t paying proper attention.”

Charlie rolled her eyes as she turned on the faucet, grabbing a half used bottle of liquid soap and shooting down at the soiled kitchenware. “If it doesn’t work this time, can we just order pizza?”

“It will work,” Castiel said.

“And if it doesn’t?” She repeated.

Castiel continued to stare at the pie, but after a few moments he took a loud breath and said, “Alright, we can order pizza if it doesn’t work.”

“So, uh…,” Dean said, clapping his hands together. “What can I do. Just kinda standin’ over here…”

“Think your horde hands won’t be too sullied if you were to wash dishes?” Charlie replied.

“For the last time I’m not horde!” Dean said, taking off his jacket and throwing it on the stool. “I’m a free agent. I do the jobs I gotta to get what I want! S’that sound like horde to you?”

“…No, that’d be too practical for horde,” Charlie admitted. Dean grabbed a sponge from the sink while slightly glaring at her, and started scrubbing.

“What’s your thing against the horde anyway?” Dean asked. “It’s just a game.”

“Yeah, but… I told you last week,” she replied, slightly quieter. “They’re like the bible-thumping horde… the game’s got that binary power system, right? The one that’s like ‘oh look, you’re on the Good side, you get this pretty armor,’ and ‘oh, you’re on the Evil side, you get the armor that makes you look like a skank.’ I hate it, the whole ‘you gotta act exactly how the Good people want you to otherwise you’re Evil.’ It all sucks, but if I gotta fight in the binary I’m gonna fight the ass-holes who decided it should be a thing in the first place. Plus I can look sexy instead of looking like a weaponized nun.”

“I get that,” Dean said. “But what’s the point of the game if you don’t want any of the rewards either side’s paying out? Why be the butt-boy to either one?”

“Entertainment,” Castiel said. The other two looked over to him, though Dean noticed that Castiel’s eyes had to look up to his, not over. As if he had been staring at something in Dean’s vicinity and then looked up to his face. The only other thing in the vicinity was Dean’s butt. Aaaand Dean turned on his “I am sexy” smirk.

“The point of the game is entertainment.” Castiel said with some extra color to his cheeks. “And not all people who have faith in the Holy Bible believe its accurate expression is violence unto others.”

“… I didn’t mean you, Cas,” Charlie said, but Castiel’s glance was already back at the pie. She sighed and whispered, “I hate it when he gets like this…”

“The point aint just entertainment,” Dean said before dipping down to Charlie’s level to ask, “Hate it when he gets like what?”

She glanced around Dean to see if Cas was paying attention, which he wasn’t. She pressed her lips together and said, while keeping her voice below the volume of the music her computer provided, “I mean… I don’t… well, I don’t know Cas really really well, you know, only for a few months, but there are these times that he gets fixated on one tiny little thing and then kaboom that’s his whole life. Like when I first told him about my issues with Christianity, what with the whole ‘you’re a lesbian, therefore must die or at least loose all your family!’… with that he just wouldn’t let the matter drop - - hey, whoa, your face Winchester, chill. It’s not like he was yelling at me or anything, he just… he became determined to apologize to me on the part of the Mormons and all the Christians. It didn’t matter that I told him it wasn’t his thing to apologize for, he just kept getting more worked up about it till he was about to cry and finally told him I accepted the apology.”

“So you lied to get him to shut up?” Dean asked.

Charlie almost spoke, but she changed it to a quick smile and said, “Actually… I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t want him to just shut up, and I’m still pissed at bible thumpers, but… I forgave him for his tiny little part in all that, y’know? I didn’t want him to keep feeling bad, so maybe I did forgive… am I sharing too much?”

Dean stared into the invisible distance a moment before shrugging.

“Okay,” Charlie muttered. “So yeah, that’s what this is. I don’t know why, but this afternoon he just grabbed me and said I need to make pie in his scary voice and then I came in here and… I guess that five page paper on Ruby’s just gonna have to screw itself in the face.”

“Ruby?”

“Yeah… the language.” She said.

Dean blinked, sexy grin long gone.

“It’s a programming language,” Charlie said. “It’s a lot of fun once you learn how to use it, but man is it a bitch when you don’t respect—“

“No, NO!” Castiel yelled. The dishwashing duo looked over, Castiel grabbing at the oven door handle right as the pie exploded in a fiery splat. The oven door burst open and smacked Cas in the face, throwing him back on the floor as black smoke and embers rolled out of the oven. It took a moment for Dean to realize that one of the charred, flaming strips of the pie’s lattice was stuck to Castiel’s face.

“Jesus!” Dean yelled while hurdling at the flaming piece of crust and knocking if off Castiel’s face as he writhed on the floor. “Hold still, lemme look at it… whoa…”

There was a strip of red, burned and peeling skin across Castiel’s face, but as Dean crouched there he could see healthy skin pulling up over the burn. In just a few moments there was no burn at all. “The hell…”

“Human with benefits,” Castiel said quietly. “We need to put out the fire.”

Dean jumped over to the offending strip of pastry and stomped it into ashy bits, turning back to watch Castiel get up as Charlie used the faucet sprayer to douse the flames that were once an apple pie. She got out of the way as Cas grabbed the smoldering mass they had spent an hour preparing , threw open the kitchen window, and tossed out the damned lump. There was a clang reminiscent to that of a dumpster.

This place… this place… Dean shook his head as he grabbed wet paper towels to grab chunks of the pie bomb to toss the mess out. Just when he thought there might be some kind of normalcy here the café did something else weird, like making a human somehow freaking immortal or whatever or, hell, maybe flipping gravity when he wasn’t paying attention.

Dean immediately imagined himself falling onto his head and had to grab onto the nearby wall to keep from feeling sick.

“And more fire and brimstone,” Charlie sighed, tossing her sponge into the soapy water, which sprayed suds over her and the sink. “You okay Cas? Dodge more shrapnel with your ninja skills?”

“…Do we have any more apples?”

“Cas, no. No more pie,” Charlie begged. “You promised pizza, and it’s like… yeah, it’s past midnight. Want food. Please. I need noms to sacrifice at the altar of the college paper writing gods.”

Castiel was back at the refrigerator, digging around. “Can you make a pie out of cantaloupe and a half-bag of blueber-“

“Cas, c’mon man,” Dean said. “You told her you’d get pizza if things went south, they did, so yeah. C’mon.”

Castiel’s shoulders sank deep and head fell, still one step into the refrigerator. He stepped out but his head still hung. After a few moments he nodded and pulled off an advert and coupon from one of the pizza joints on Massachusetts and handed it to Charlie. “The phone’s over in the corner.”

“Finally,” Charlie said, grabbing the advert and coupon and striding over to the phone. Dean watched her go, then looked back to Cas… still sullen. 

“You alive in there?”

“Yes,” Castiel replied.

“Sure don’t look it.”

“I’m disappointed, Dean.”

“I wouldn’t be too disappointed if I could take a flaming biscuit to face and walk away lookin’ fine.”

“…it wasn’t a biscuit.”

“Close enough,” Dean said. “Look, it sucks that we don’t get pie, but it’s not like it's the end of the world or something.”

“Of course not,” Castiel shot back. His gaze lifted to Dean’s for a moment turning down again, followed by a sigh. “You’re always in pain when you come in, and I contribute to it. I wanted…,”

“…This is about what Ms. Moseley told you before, eh… yeah, that,” Dean said.

“Yes…,” Castiel said. “You don’t deserve to be in pain all the time.”

“Yeah, well, those are the rules of the game, right? We both know this all sucks, s’all fucked up…,” Dean replied, sucking in a hiss of breath at the end.

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean we should be allowed our simple pleasures.”

“That book made it pretty clear pie aint simple.”

“…You know what I mean,” Castiel said. 

Charlie put the wall-phone down to her chest. “Hey bitches, you realize I’m, like, five feet away from you? Zepplin isn’t covering your whispers – oh, yes, one large with peperoni, peppers, onions, and extra cheese… yup, the Obolus Café… thanks so much!

“Okay, look,” She said, hanging up the phone. “First… well, I don’t know what biscuits has to do with anything, I was punching in the pizza dude’s number, sorry I can’t preach on that. Second, Cas, the system was rigged against you. No matter how many times we try to cook with that oven it always nukes out. I mean, it sucks that we don’t get pie – which apparently is a thing for you Dean, which, gotta be honest, totally adorbs – but… it’s not for lack of trying. The system’s not perfect and fucks us over. So fuck the system and eat all the pizza instead.”

“What happened to fighting the system from within the system, little miss Devil’s Dispatch?” Dean said.

“Really dude? How’re you gonna fight a heating appliance that weighs, like, a ton and is connected to gas lines? All that other stuff is part of the system… whoa I sound like a crazy communist hippie person in one of my sociology classes, but it’s still true. I am fighting the crappy system from within it cause that’s all I got. I can use the phone lines to order greasy, nommy pizza. If you don’t want the blazed pie or the pizza, then hey you can go hungry.”

“This conversation has quickly turned very philosophical,” Castiel muttered.

“It’s called meta,” Dean said, but his phone began buzzing. He clenched his jaw and reached inside his pocket, pulled out his phone and checked the number. Maybe it wasn’t AAA… nope, it was AAA. “Fuck…,” He sighed. He opened it up and raised the phone to his ear. “Lemme guess.”

“Deeeaan! How ya doing buddy? I got—“

“Are you fucking deaf? Business. Not buddies. Now drop the shit and tell me where I’m going.”

Charlie raised an eyebrow, but Dean ignored her, grabbing a paper towel and a pen to write down the location of the wreck. He didn’t recognize the location. After hanging up he borrowed Charlie’s computer and, stealing the neighbor’s wifi, pinned the location. “Where the hell is that?”

“What is it?” Charlie asked.

“Triple-A shit, it’s a contract thing,” Dean said. “There’s been a wreck at 170th and Kestrel, but I got no idea… holy fuck… fuck no, he’s screwing with me,” Dean said, smashing redial on his phone. After a few rings he yelled, ”Zachariah what the hell is this, this place’s practically at the Nebraska border!”

“Yeah…,” Zachariah replied, sounding as if he failed to see an issue.

“The hell! Send someone else!”

“There isn’t anyone else, Mr. Winchester,” he said, making Dean grit his teeth. “Our man in Hiawatha lapsed on his deal a year back, so—“

“St. Joseph’s right there, man, tell them to—“

“St. Joseph, Missouri, Mr. Winchester. Our policies do not allow us to call in someone from another state—“

“Since when was that a thing!?”

“That is the regulation of our company as of a court ruling on—“

“Atchison, Topeka, hell Kansas City, how is it possible that I’m the only one that--!”

“Mr. Winchester, need I remind you that refusing to fulfill your end of your contract with us incurs a fine and legal reproachment of—“

“FINE, I’M GOING!” Dean yelled, poking his phone to hang up in fury. He missed the phone in the Locust shop; poking a plastic box wasn’t the same as slamming something down with a clang. 

After a few moments he turned around, finding Charlie clearly worried and… shit, Cas looked resigned. 

“Save me a piece of pizza, got it?” Dean said, walking over to the stool and grabbing his jacket. As he slid it on Charlie asked, “What’s going on?”

“Someone went stupid tonight and got into a car crash up near fucking Hiawatha, and cuz I got this leash around my neck…,” He seethed for a moment before pointing at Charlie. “Don’t let him,” he pointed at Cas. “Try to make another pie. Or from beating himself up. Think you can do that?”

Charlie nodded. Castiel lowered his shoulders and let his head drift slightly to the side and lightly lift an eyebrow. “I don’t need looking after.”

“Yeah, well… Maybe someone should do it anyway.” Dean said. “God knows he ain’t doin’ it… for anyone.”

He didn’t want to explain that, Dean just wanted this shit to be done with. He slammed himself into the Impala and rushed to the Levi. At the yard he cursed and spat and kicked the gravel, unable to name his fury. His sentences kept coming back to the point, the point, what was the point? He got in the Levi, angry at his mother’s funeral, at Ms. Moseley’s, the futility, the impermanence, the suffering that kept coming back again and again. It didn’t stop there; tonight things were getting better with Cas. Philosophical and third wheely, but better, until this damn contracted, pencil pushing prat interrupted the whole thing.

It was going to take him hours to get up to Hiawatha, clean up the mess, talk with EMTs and police when they got there, and tow everything back. He told Charlie and Cas to save him a piece of pizza, but he wouldn’t be there to get it. Quick math told Dean that he’d be opening up the Locust shop by the time he was done with all this. 

What was the point? Of all of this?

Ten miles out from the wreck Dean was passed by gang of bikers. Four miles out he saw them coming back on the other side of the road, and he realized who the bikers were. He pushed Levi as hard as he could to get to the wreck faster, but then he saw it. Flames towering into the sky, a burst as the remnants of an SUV exploded. He slowly pulled up to the crossing of 170th and Kestral, also a railroad crossing. There was a whole string of cars piled up, crashed into each other. Some of the bodies were still in the cars, dead and draped over the steering wheels, but others were closer to the fire with bodies on top of them. It looked like they had been trying to carry people who were caught in the fire out when something, smoke inhalation, shrapnel, who knows…

Dean stepped out of the Leviathon. They were kids. One of the cars had window paint scribbled on the side, saying “KC or Bust!” The license plates were Idaho. Bits of blue and white marching band gear fluttered in the air, tumbled across the road, caught fire and flew up into the sky.

What if he hadn’t fought with Zachariah? What if he hadn’t blown up at the Yard? 

“God you bastard,” Dean said. “You horde bastard.”


	10. Chapter 10

 

     Dean felt the click of the key in Levi’s ignition as he turned it backwards slightly, then all the way. The beast’s growl whimpered and died, leaving Dean to stare out at the invisible list of his misdeeds, the deaths of over a dozen kids tacked on to the bottom some thousand yards off. Pedestrians laughed at who knows what, but he heard the screech of broken bumper that dragged on the asphalt when Dean towed the last car back to the Yard, like an insect pinned to a collector’s board.

     Death liked pinning things, Dean mused. It didn’t care if you were obliviated after your final moments, went to a heaven or hell, lurched your way to the River Acheron with the weight of an untold life under your tongue; it just pinned you down and demanded you give up your species name, you meaning. Of course, life doesn’t have any meaning, so Death was trying to make sense of the senseless, catching lives and pinning them down, categorizing them according to varying levels of who cares. Even Death was futile.

     Words captured these thoughts and carried them to Dean’s thinking world, but as his stare shifted from the distant finish line towards the Café across the road, something flickered in his wordless darkness. It was a small crack, a feather of light that convinced him to step out into the cold, cross the street, and enter the rancor of the Obolus Café on a Sunday morning.

     Men in pastel button downs and women donning the same, slightly spiraled hairstyle mulled around the front of the café, eagerly discussing things that carried as much worth as Dean did. Kevin and a bald black man frantically served customers their strange orders. Dean almost moved, to ask them where Castiel was, but he caught sight of a table in the back corner of the café where Meg and another woman sat with three gray teenagers that seemed fuzzy around the edges.

     Dean pushed through the crowd to the back table, whereupon a desaturated girl said, “Oh look, another one.”

     He stared for a moment before looking over at Meg. “You find your soul-mate?”

     “Hah hah, Robocop, but I’m kinda busy right now and so is your boyfriend, so if you don’t mind-“

     “Dude’s gay?” said an almost muscular, gray boy with handsome cheekbones. “Gross amn. Hate fags.”

     Dean’s heavy eyes hovered on the boy for a moment. He wore a sweatshirt with lacrosse sticks pasted on the front and a smile that had never had to live with someone telling him no. Dean’s guilt drenched heart lightened faintly.

     “And I hate entitled douches that talk in two word sentences, so we’re even. ‘Sides, he’s not my boyfriend.”

     The third kid, a thin boy with dark skin and glasses, smirked. The he-man wannabe’s face twisted inwards.

     “Well you’re not telling me I’m dead, ‘cause I’m not!” The girl snapped, though her shoulders were shivering. “Yeah, how do you like that you dick! You’re just a- a big, fat lipped moron! Like, just a washed out jock or something!”

     “I think I’ve got too much class to be this one’s soul-mate,” Meg said. “And just because you don’t call someone your boyfriend doesn’t mean they’re not your boyfriend.”

     “Wait, really? ‘Cause this Russian transfer student, Vlad, oh my god he is like so hot, he and I were in his car this one time after his wrestling meet—“

     “Meg, what have you done? Now she won’t shut up.” the other psychopomp said, throwing her head down on the table.

     “Isn’t this Cas’s job?” Dean asked.

     “You mean your boyfriend’s job? Haw hah, nailed it!” Wannabe said.

     The other psychopomp made a finger gun, placed it on her temple, and pulled the trigger. “I can’t do this Meg. It’s not fair. I want to do the bang. Why can’t I do the bang?”

     “Because we’re surrounded by innocent little mortals who’d lose it if you ripped into these ghosts-in-waiting, Ruby.” Meg’s gaze shifted slightly before she said, “Take ‘em, any of them, just get them away from me, intern.”

     Dean turned and nearly smacked Castiel in the chest. The barista sighed, shoulders hunched and deep lines setting into his forehead. “How are you Dean?”

     Dean opened his mouth, but instead he shared his distant stare with Cas for a few moments until blue-eyes nodded solemnly.

     “Fags!” Wannabe called out, smiling at the offended looks of a few customers. “These two fairies are fags!”

     “The divine do not discriminate based on who someone falls in love with; why do you think you ought to?” Castiel replied.

     “Hah, right. The bible says-“

     “You know the Holy Bible? Excellent. Let’s discuss it. I particularly enjoy Genesis 9:24.”

     Ruby’s hand clenched, and the wannabe shot into a standing position with a yelp. Without lifting her head she reached over to Castiel, who made a fist, touched his to hers, and tugged his hand like holding a string, prompting the teen to start following him.

     “Do you know that passage about Noah? No? What a shame. Granted, Leviticus 18:22 flies in the face of that passage, but Ruth 1:14 and Samuel 20:3 to 20:14 thoroughly put the matter of same-sex love in the category of ‘humans don’t know the things they claim to know.’ So let us discuss the Holy Bible and what it means about certain a boat ride.”

     The barista’s words were polite, but Dean grinned at the tone that was anything but. The bewildered youth followed Castiel back to the kitchen, the crack in Dean’s dark sprouting a few new lines.

     “And then there were two,” Meg said with syrupy malevolence.

     “You don’t like us, we get it,” the thin kid said. “Can’t you just… leave us alone until what’s his face comes to get us?”

     “She can,” Ruby replied, lifting her head up to look at him. “But I’m your guide, so you’re stuck with me until I pass you off to the conductor.”

     “…You mean Cas?” Dean asked.

     “No, the little cockroaches scuttling around inside the wall – of course I mean Castiel—“

     The dead girl, who had not stopped talking about the dark haired beauty Vlad, shrieked, jumped away from the wall, and knocked over her golden mug while sending the thin boy’s mug flying until he snatched it and spun away from her. The girl threw herself away from the table, trying to run into the increasingly annoyed crowd of Sunday café goers, but she stopped only a few feet away, her limbs snapping back as if tied to a puppet-master’s cross. Her shriek of disgust shifted to outright terror. Meg grabbed her and pulled her back towards the corner, but the girl wouldn’t stop screaming. Ruby got up and walked with Meg towards the storage room, the boy lurching after them, and headed up the stairs carrying the flailing girl out of view. The screams continued until Dean heard a door slam, and only then they were muffled. The onlooking crowd stared at him with worried eyes.

     “Uh… my cousin, she doesn’t take text break-ups well.”

     A few people continued to stare, but most simply nodded and added the news into their dry conversations. Dean smiled and nodded weakly for a few moments until he was no longer stared at, then sighed and rubbed his eyes.

     “It’s been like that all night,” he heard Kevin say. Dean looked over to find the psychopomp leaning across the counter. “Ah… you’d probably prefer I not talk to you, right?”

     Dean shrugged. “Nah, at this point I can take a human voice from anywhere, pulse or not.”

     Kevin blinked once before saying, “Thanks… I think.”

     After a few moments of pressing silence Dean cleared his throat and said, “So, uh… the kids have been…?”

     “Calling them a nuclear explosion of angst would be an understatement.”

     Dean’s feather of light dimmed.

     “Were you… one of the guys that went out there?”

     “Yeah,” Kevin said. “Me, Uriel, Ruby, and a few others… None of them were ready to go.”

     Dean nodded slowly. “They’re just kids…”

     “Just because someone’s young doesn’t mean they can’t walk Death’s path peacefully.” Kevin snorted.

     “You were their age when you became… this.” Dean surmised. Kevin’s jaw locked and he inhaled deep. “That’s as close to a yes I’m gonna get,” Dean said.

     There was another wail from upstairs.

     “I should probably get up there,” Kevin said, but the manila envelope. Dean shook his head to get the image out of his head, and heard himself saying, “No, I’ll handle it,” the same that he told his mother on the phone as he walked up the front lawn. The Imapla’s engine flared in the garage before it shot out the driveway and into the road, his father cursing and knocking over the trash cans before gunning away. Dean swallowed hard and turned back to the front door where he could hear his brother screaming.

     Dean stood at the bottom of the Café’s steps, looking up at the aging yellow walls and the sobbing sounds they carried. He took his first step carefully, then jumped the rest, opening the screen door before pushing through to the living room. A ripped open manila envelope lay on the rug. He picked it up, turned it over, and read “Stanford Law School” on the front. He heard a thud and shatter paired with his brother’s shouting beyond the door to the kitchen.

     Dean held the handle to Castiel’s bedroom, trying to make out the words behind the wailing, but it was no good. This time he knocked before entering, and did so once he heard the thin boy say come in.

     Scattered papers made the kitchen’s linoleum slicker than it already was, so Dean called out to his brother while trying not to slip and break his face.

     “Go away Dean!” Samuel shouted back, sounding like he had a puffy nose.

     “Dude, what the hell did you do?”

     “Hah, right,” Sam barked back. “It’s always something I do, always wrecking the family, but I just can’t help it. Maybe I want the damn thing to burn down, end the show and this shit.”

     “You always push him when you know he’s pissed—“  
  
     “I NEVER PUSH HIM, DEAN! NEVER!” Samuel shouted as Dean slipped and caught himself on the kitchen counter. “HOW MANY FUCKING PARENTS PULL A GUN ON THEIR KID FOR GETTING INTO STANFORD LAW?! HE’S INSANE, HE’S A MONSTER!”  
Dean scrambled into the dining room, finding the table knocked over, a punch hole in the wall, and his brother growling in the corner with a fast bruising left eye.  
  
     “Jesus,” Dean said under his breath, staring at the black tendrils bleeding out of the girl’s shadow on Castiel’s bed, silhouetting her as a crouched, crying heap. Meg ran out of the room saying, “Fucking Unicorn’s taking forever,” as Ruby yelled, “It’s just death! It’s not the end of the world, just get over it!”  
  
     “Just get over death? Did you actually just say that?” The thin boy asked.  
  
     Ruby stepped back. “Well what am I supposed to say! I’m a delivery girl, not a therapist!”  
  
     Dean winced. He’d asked his brother what he had done to deserve the black eye. Dean stepped towards the shadows and said, “Hey… hey, girl, hey it’s gonna be okay-“  
  
     “Go away!” She cursed at him, still hunching over.

     Dean frowned but took a step closer. “Nah, really, it’s-“  
  
     “I SAID GO AWAY!” She screamed, flipping her head around to glare at him, but there were no eyes. In their place were dark holes and thin, clawing fingers creeping onto her cheeks and forehead.  
  
     “What’s happening?” The thin boy yelled.  
  
     “She’s going ghost,” Ruby sighed, as if the office photocopier was jammed again.  
  
     Dean shuddered for a moment before saying, “No. I’m staying right here until you’re doing okay.”  
  
     “YOU DON’T KNOW ME! YOU CAN’T HELP ME!”  
  
     “You won’t know that unless you give me a chance,” Dean said.  
  
     “A chance to do what?” Sam snapped. “To defend him? Because, let me guess, he’s family. What the hell is it with you and that word, do you even know what it means?”  
  
     Dean picked Sam up and threw him against the wall, ready to knock out his little brother’s other eye, but he hesitated. His brother relaxed into a punching bag’s slouch, looking at Dean like a dare. Another few breaths. Sam perked one eyebrow and lifted his chin, so Dean hit him, hard enough to move his cheek but that was it.  
  
     Dean let go of Sam, who staggered a moment but held his ground.  
  
     “You listen to me you little bitch: Family is family, and you do anything for them, you got that?!”  
  
     “Hah, right,” Sam spat. “You mean you do anything to them. And hey why not? They can’t run away.”  
  
     Dean stepped away from his brother as his throat tightened, naming the dare he’d just seen, the dare he saw in this girl, willing to run away into the dark and never turn back. Her chin was high and determined. She’d been punched by something that was never supposed to touch her like that. It was Death pinning her to his board.  
  
     “What’s your name?” Dean asked, carefully taking a seat on a part of the bed that hadn’t fallen into her creeping ink.  
  
     “…Kristina,” She said, pulling back towards the pillow.  
  
     “I’m really tired, Kristina, so, uh… If I go talking stupid or pass out or something, just hit me, kay?”  
  
     She said nothing at first. Eventually she nodded.  
  
     Dean nodded too. “Have you ever done something so stupid that you just keep repeating it over and over in your head, like a movie that got stuck or something and just loops back to this one bad scene all the time, and you can’t… you can’t turn it off? It just eats at you?”  
  
     “…What are you talking about?”  
  
     He rubbed the back of his head. “Ahhh, God I don’t know. This is new territory for me too, but… I’m trying to help.”  
  
     “You suck at it.”  
  
     “Hey, I’m just starting, gimme a break,” He said. “And sucking’s better than doing nothing or yelling, y’know?”  
  
     She shifted her head slightly towards him. “…I guess.”  
  
     Dean nodded. And sat there. Quietly. What should he do next? “Uh… look, I can’t say I really know how this whole… ghost thing works, but if I’m right then… it’s pretty shitty.”  
  
     “Pretty shitty? I’m dead! I’M DEAD! I NEVER… I never,” the tendrils crawled closer to Dean and onto Cas’s nightstand as her skin paled more. “It’s not right, it’s not fair! I’m not supposed to be dead! I was… I was supposed to go to the championship this year! I never even took it in the vag ‘cause I was too scared I’d get preggers-!“  
  
     “OKAY, too much info there,” Dean said with wide eyes. He looked up for a moment; Ruby was glaring at him while the boy cowered in the corner. “But, hey, you’re right, it isn’t fair. It’s damned fucked up that this happened… that I let it happen.”  
  
     The ink shuddered angrily. “…What do you mean you let it happen?”  
  
     “…I was the guy who was supposed to pull you guys out of the crash last night,” Dean said, his throat tightening again, his mind mixing the train wreck and the explosion of the family dining room. “But I fucked up. I wasn’t fast enough or smart enough to pull you guys out. And… it sucks. I’m sorry.”  
  
     The ink shuddered again, but stayed still. “Why’re you telling me this?”  
  
     “’Cuz… see, this talking thing? Talking about why I do stuff? Expression and shit? I’m really bad at this, but, man… you just died and I was part of the reason why. Life’s not fair and death sure isn’t either, but you deserve better than a lame-ass, cop-out answer like that, so I’m gonna fix this for you if I gotta sit here talking shit out till I kick it too.”  
  
     Her shadow’s tendrils curled and shrank a bit. “…You don’t even know me... I mean, like, even my mom doesn’t listen to me.”  
  
     “…She should have,” Dean said, holding back his shaky joy that she hadn't lost it when he told her he’d basically let her die. Kristina said nothing for several moments, long enough for Dean to notice the thrum of conversations downstairs. He looked across the bed and found her shadow mostly retracted and the claws no longer flowing from her eyes. Black tears flowed instead.  
  
     “That thingie you said, the… like, repeating something all over and again,” She said. “Yeah, I know that thing.”  
  
     “Blows,” He said.  
  
     “Yeah,” she replied. Dean looked up for a moment and saw the thin kid was watching them carefully, huddling himself.  
  
     “I’m thinking… and hey, this is just a hunch, but… I think that mind thing fucks with us. Like… it makes us crazy, a bunch of scared, bitchy, closed off jerks who don’t listen when we should or reach out when we should or just… God… let things the don’t matter go. And if it makes us nuts when we’re alive, maybe that’s what—“  
  
     “Makes you ghost,” twiggy said.  
  
     “Yeah, what he said,” Dean nodded. “So you gotta… let those repeating things go. Unless you wanna be a ghost I guess—“  
  
     “Oh, no she doesn’t,” Ruby said. “Ghosting over means your soul catches on fire which, in case it’s not obvious, isn’t pleasant. You loose sentience and wander around the place you’re pissed at till you forget why you’re angry and then roam the world till one of us finds you and throws you into the deepest pit of hell.”  
  
     “Snap,” twiggy breathed.  
  
     “Égui; look it up sometime,” Ruby smiled.  
  
     “She’s creepy,” Kristina whispered.  
  
     “No kiddin’,” Dean replied.  
  
     “So… how do I… just let things go?” Kristina asked. Twiggy nodded, shaking as he inched towards them with his arms drawn close to his body.  
  
     “By just doing your normal thing, Dean,” Sam sneered. “You all let me go years ago when mom decided she loves you more than me,”  
  
     “The fuck man, don’t talk-!”  
  
     “Every birthday, every baseball game, field trip, everything Dean, she always drops whatever she’s doing to come be mommy, but I never got that.”  
  
     “Wha-? You’re wrong, there’ve been LOADS of times that she-“  
  
     “Name one. Name the last time you guys got together for my birthday.”  
  
     “…Hey, it’s not my fault your b-day’s in the middle of finals season—“  
  
     “Yet my college friends somehow gave me a cake this year. Where were you, Dean? Where was mom? Where was dad?”  
  
     Dean wanted to smack his little brother again, but the blinding light of egocentrism dimmed, and in the darkness he found that he could only remember candles in pies. Dean got pies, Sam got cakes, and all Dean could see were pies. His mom would wish him a happy birthday after he blew out the candles, and she’d glance at the other boys and wink at Dean, telling him how much she loved him and always would, always reminding him that his secret was safe with her. Pies were full of tasty secrets and safety, while cakes were light and boring. Dad got cakes too, but for birthdays where Sam was present… Dean could only remember pies.  
  
     Sam leaned in close to Dean with a look of drunken anger usually reserved for their father. “Eight years. You wanna let me go when I go to law school? Just do what you’re doing.”  
  
     “Letting go,” Dean murmured. “ S’when you see something bigger ahead of you than what you’re riled up about. Those things that get stuck on repeat in your head… maybe it’s not just the bad things, but also good things that fuck with us. I’ve done a lot stupid things, and run them over in my head all the time, wishing things were different, but I do the same with things that… well, were good. But both of them keep me from, like… just being right now, seeing what jobs I gotta do and how to do them. When you see that… you let go of the things holding you back.”  
  
     The room was quiet for a few moments until Ruby said, “Holy shit, what are you?”  
  
     “Tired, but awake,” Dean replied.  
  
     A familiar metallic bang echoed up to Castiel’s room from the storage room, followed by two sets of thundering footsteps. Dean looked to the door way as Castiel rocketed through the door, slipped on the rug, and barreled over into the wall. Meg appeared in the doorway with a glower but her eyes widened when she saw Kristina. Cas scrambled to his feet with the help of the thin boy and started towards the bed, but he looked at Kristina, and then Dean, and his sweaty jaw dropped.  
  
     “You’re… all right?” Castiel asked, eyes darting between the girl and man.  
  
     “I dunno,” Kristina said, rocking sideways slightly. Dean peered at her dry face, gray but with a flush of color, and sighed shakily.  
  
     “We’re good enough,” he said.  
  
     A drop of sweat rolled from Cas’s jaw down the muscle line on his neck, disappearing in the pit where his collarbones joined beneath his button down, and Dean felt a bit more than good enough. Cas shifted from one foot to another and tugged at his shirt as he straightened his posture, making Dean want to say something else, but he didn’t know what. He wanted to say his feather of light was cracking bigger, but that’d make so sense to Cas… in part because it made none to Dean either. Dean grinned slightly; there really was no inherent meaning in life.  
  
     “Well then… you deserve a conversation,” Castiel said, reaching his hand out to Kristina. “And a boat ride.”  
  
     Kristina swallowed and said, “I’m really dead, aren’t I? This is it?”  
  
     “Not exactly… to both of your questions. I’ll explain things for you,” Castiel replied. Kristina took his hand and stepped off his bed with a normal shadow. Castiel looked at Dean and gave a slight nod of the head to follow him; Cas walked over to Ruby, tapped her fist, and walked towards the doorway. With Kristina in front, Cas held back for a moment, whispering to Dean, “I hope you inform me what transpired after I finish with work… as well as what is troubling you.”  
  
    "I don’t know what I did,” Dean said. “I just kinda…,” he held up his hand and flapped his fingers and thumb together like a talkative duck. He went on to say, “But really, I think… I’m doing okay on this one, for real.”  
  
     “Shall I leave you be then? You may rest in my room if you need sleep.”  
  
     “Sleep… yeah, sound’s awesome, but, uh…,” Dean leaned on the stair-rail as he followed Castiel down. “Think you’d be up for coffee or tea or somethin’? Just to… hang out for a while?”  
  
     Castiel said nothing as they reached the ground’s floorboards. Without turning his head he reached behind him, found Dean’s hand, and wove his warm fingers into Dean’s. Cas rest his hand there for several moments before letting go and nodding. “Hopefully I won’t make you wait too long.”  
  
     Castiel walked with Kristina back to the kitchen. She was scared but unlike Sammy not too long ago, she didn’t have the somber glare of an orphan. Dean let his brother go, knowing he’d come back… if he’d just wait long enough, sitting on that stool in the garage, staring at that loud clock, that his brother and father would come back. And even though this girl wasn’t going to come back either, his chest didn’t twist in pain from passing seconds. He’d done his work… somehow.  
  
     Dean looked back up the stairwell, hearing the echoes of the boy and Ruby talking energetically to Meg about something, but the bitter adrenaline keeping Dean standing was starting to fade, and he had no energy or interest in going back up there. As he stepped into café Dean glanced at Kevin for a moment, but the psychopomp was scrubbing at the inside of one of the coffee percolators. Even Kevin always had work to do, some kind of direction… some goal or meaning. Dean couldn’t see it, and maybe Kevin couldn’t say it, but maybe it was there, hiding from life, hiding from death, manifesting in the kid’s acts.  
  
     Or maybe he was so sleep deprived that he wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe he was? Whatever the state Dean walked through the crowd towards the door, grabbing the phone in his pocket. He stepped into the cold, wet air. Some kind of muddy spring was pushing into Kansas. Dean walked around the white-walled store next to the Obolus on the corner to evade the noise of outgoing café patrons, flipped open his phone, and scrolled through the contacts. The four rings of Sam’s phone stung more than Dean expected, but he took a breath and bared it as his brother’s voice told reminded him who he was and what to do after the beep.  
  
     “Hey Sammy, I, uh… I wanna talk with you. It’s not… well, hell, I guess it is… I dunno how to say this but, uh, I wanna talk about the day you ran off to law school. Shoulda been California, man, but… yeah. Just call me back, kay?”  
  
     He shut off the phone and slipped it back in his pocket. Dean stared up one way of New Hampshire, then the other. He looked up at the cloudless sky, then down to the gritty tarmac, before settling his gaze on the thousand yards ahead of him. Pick up the pieces and put them back together. Maybe that was his meaning. He could do that. Mechanically, archaeologically, and hell maybe even socially… Dean could put things back together. Maybe he could put himself back together too. He stepped away from the wall, wary of the knocked over one-way sign pointing at him, and walked back to the café for tea.

\---  
The cake is a lie.  
The pie is a lie.

Also, grad school eats people. It chews on them until all our words bleed out. We get nothing to write our own works, instead digesting in the academic juices of research designs and academic essays. Tis unpleasant.

Lastly… guess what chapter’s next?  
The one with the sex.


End file.
